April 1998 Birmingham tornado

For the 2005 tornado in Birmingham, UK see 2005 Birmingham tornado. For other tornadoes in the history of Birmingham, Alabama, see Birmingham Tornado (disambiguation).

The Birmingham Tornado was a tornadic event that occurred on April 8, 1998 striking the western part of Jefferson County, Alabama, near Birmingham, and continuing into neighboring St. Clair County. It was part of a larger outbreak that started on April 6 across the Great Plains and ended on April 9 across the Carolinas and Georgia. A total of 62 tornadoes touched down from the Middle Atlantic States to the Midwestern United States and Texas. The Birmingham Tornado was one of only two F5 tornadoes that year. The other hit in Lawrence County, Tennessee on April 16, as part of the same outbreak as the Nashville tornadoes. The tornado outbreak was responsible for at least 41 deaths including 7 in Georgia and 34 in Alabama.

Tornado event

Birmingham supercell

Tuscaloosa County tornado (F3)

The worst of the outbreak started around 7:00 PM CDT when a supercell originating from Mississippi entered Pickens and Tuscaloosa Counties. It produced an F3 and traveled north of the city of Tuscaloosa. Two injuries were reported and five homes and 11 mobile homes were destroyed from this storm that traveled over 17 miles (27 km) from Holman to north of Northport. 24 homes and 13 mobile homes were also damaged.[1]

Jefferson County tornado (F5)

Shortly after 7:30 P.M., the supercell spawned the Birmingham Tornado as a wall cloud. It touched down in extreme eastern Tuscaloosa County and then cut a 31-mile long (49 km), 3/4-mile wide swath through nine Birmingham suburbs with F3 to F5 damage including Oak Grove, Sylvan Springs, Rock Creek, Pleasant Grove, Concord, Maytown, and Edgewater before lifting in the western limits of the City of Birmingham just northwest of the junctions of Interstates 20, 59 and 65. The worst of the destruction occurred across the Oak Grove, Rock Creek and McDonald Chapel areas. The second area affected by F5 damage was also devastated by a violent tornado in 1956 that tracked through the same areas hit by this storm. [2]

Thirty-two people were killed in this tornado including three in Oak Grove, eleven near Rock Creek, four in Sylvan Springs, two in Wylam Heights, nine in Edgewater, two in McDonald Chapel and one in West Ensley.[3] One young boy died nine days after this event from head injuries. His father was paralyzed from the waist down, and his mother suffered severe injuries. Another mother and her two children were killed when hundreds of pounds of debris was blown onto them.

Oak Grove, an unincorporated community west of Hueytown, was one of the hardest hit locations. Oak Grove High School was damaged beyond repair with the elementary school portion destroyed, but they were rebuilt two years later and reopened a mile away from the damaged area. The Oak Grove fire station was heavily damaged as well. No one inside the school was killed but a group of cheerleaders practicing at the school's gymnasium escaped disaster with only minor injuries when a wall prevented a portion of the roof from falling on them. [4]

The roofs of Hueytown's Rock Creek Church of God were blown off and several cars were blown 500 feet into a ravine. The church was turned into a trauma center. The United Methodist churches of Sylvan Springs, Edgewater, and McDonald Chapel were totally damaged by the windstorm. Open Door Church also sustained heavy damage as well, with several members having to take shelter in hallways.

Had the storm remained on the ground, it would have gone into the northern sections of downtown Birmingham. A few miles further to the east, the Birmingham International Airport could have been affected as well. The storm lifted before reaching these sections of Birmingham. However, it touched down again in neighboring St. Clair County, where two people were killed.

Debris from the tornado was scattered across central Alabama as far north as sections of Blount County.

The tornado was the seventh deadliest in Alabama history, killing one more person than in a tornado that hit Alabama on March 21, 1932.

The tornado's effects were noticed around the same time by the ABC 33/40 Birmingham tower camera, which was pointed toward the western suburbs. Though it was dark, a massive power failure occurred in western Birmingham, when several transmission lines coming from the Miller Steam Plant electric generating station were knocked off line. This was noticed during the long-form weather coverage on 33/40, which lasted most of the evening. (The station, and several of its competitors, has a policy of pre-empting regular programming and broadcasting only severe weather information when a tornado warning is in effect for any part of its coverage area.)

St. Clair County tornado (F2)

After crossing the northern suburbs of Birmingham, the supercell dropped another tornado in St. Clair County near Pell City just before 9:00 PM CDT killing 2 who were inside a mobile home when the tornado hit. It remained over rural areas for 14 miles (22 km) but the F2 partially destroyed Bethel Baptist Church in Odenville, 26 homes and mobile homes and other buildings in the Coal City area. About 90 other homes and mobile homes suffered minor to major damage. An additional 12 people were injured in this storm. [5]

Georgia tornadoes

As the bulk of the activity exited Alabama, the severe weather reached the Atlanta metropolitan area late during the evening. Two tornadoes both rated F2 touched down in the northern suburbs of Atlanta. One of the tornadoes killed one person in DeKalb County. Activity persisted through the early hours of April 9 where two more killer tornadoes touched down west of Savannah. An F3 tornado near Blitchton in Bryan County killed two people and injured 15 others while damaging or destroying nearly 90 homes. An F2 tornado further south in Long and Liberty Counties killed 4 including 3 mobile home occupants in Rye Patch and one soldier at Fort Stewart Army Base.

Other tornadoes touched down on April 9 between Cleveland and Pittsburgh while several tornadoes touched down across southern Illinois on April 7 but without additional fatalities.

Tornado table

Confirmed tornadoes

April 6 event

April 7 event

April 8 event

April 9 event

See also

• List of tornadoes and tornado outbreaks
  • List of North American tornadoes and tornado outbreaks
• April 1977 Birmingham tornado

References

External links

• April 8, 1998 Tornado (NWS Birmingham, AL)
• NWS Service Assessment
• 1998 Tornado Project.