Line moving through Eastern Arkansas toward the Memphis Area: (Note: Time in upper right legend is "Eastern Standard Time")
Base Reflectivity of Tornado moving toward the Birmingham (Alabama) area: (Note: Time in upper right legend is "Eastern Standard Time")
Velocity image of the same Tornado moving toward the Birmingham (Alabama) area: (Note: Time in upper right legend is "Eastern Standard Time")
Storm Relative Velocity of the Tornado moving toward the Birmingham (Alabama) area: (Note: Time in upper right legend is "Eastern Standard Time")
Approximate Storm Track for tornado producing supercell starting in Oak Grove AL, ending in Clay AL (Yellow dashed line) The Cell produced two tornadoes prior to reaching Oak Grove.
National Weather Service summary of tornado paths produced by this supercell
Tornado (4) track over Clay, Alabama: (Just to the left of the red line in the image below; this line represents 1.78 miles of the 15.5 mile track of this tornado)
From Balboa Court, Marchester Circle, The Youth Center and Harness Circle. One fatality at Harness Circle, 16-year-old Christina Nicole Heichelbech, occurred at around 4:20am CST when the tornado destroyed her family's home. Her parents were injured. While the houses on either side of the Heichelbech's home were damaged, they and the house across the street, remained standing. The Heichelbech home was obliterated, as were many of the homes on Marchester Circle. Officials had sounded Civil Defense sirens to warn of the approaching storm, but some residents report they were awakened, not by the sirens, but by the tornado, and had mere seconds to rush for shelter. A Weather Alert radio may have helped.
Christina Nicole Heichelbech
Marchester Circle (Northwest Corner of the housing complex)
The Heichelbech
home (left) showing the garage and basement level of the home intact. The second
and third floors are gone and the family had been asleep on the third floor of
the home when the tornado struck. Christina's body was found, still on her
mattress, under debris approximately forty feet from where the home had been.
Her father and young brother were thrown into the family's pool and her mother
was discovered under debris and injured just a few feet away.
This is heartbreaking. Would Christina have survived if the family had made it to the basement or garage area in time? From the looks of the picture to the left, I would think so. She would be horribly shaken up, but very much alive. A weather alert radio, such as NOAA All Hazards Weather Radio, would probably have roused her entire family out of a deep sleep and they would have made it safely downstairs in time. The Civil Defense sirens alone, just can't do that. In most cases, the sirens are spread sparingly throughout neighborhoods and are barely audible, miles away, in homes sealed shut for the night.
As details about her life emerge, it is clear that Christina was a very bright young lady, deeply loved by her family and undoubtedly by many friends and neighbors throughout the community. This is such a tragic, heartbreaking story. Would a radio have made the difference? Probably, but sadly, we'll never know.