5 May 2011
The Flat Rock Mobile Home
Posted by Dan Satterfield
I visited the site of one of the EF 4 tornadoes that hit North Alabama on Monday and came across this mobile home. At least it WAS a mobile home. The original trailer was on those blocks in the picture above and was blown across the road about 70 yards. Not all of the mobile home made it across the road because the metal base got caught by a pine tree. Most of the tree is gone but you can see below what the twisters 190 mph winds did.
Not much left of the rest of the home but the front door is still recognizable.
In severe weather, a mobile home is a death trap. Only around 10% of Americans live in one, but in most years over half of the deaths from tornadoes are in them. You will find very few meteorologists (including me) who do not support mandatory storm shelters for all new trailer parks. The people who lived in this one did the smart thing, and got out of it before the storm hit.
Whole families in Alabama lost their lives in them last Wednesday.
Good for them!
Nobody should ever be in a mobile home during any tornado, much less a rare and violent one like this.
I grew up in a mobile home, but I had a very wise Granny who lived through April 1974 and had a storm cellar built afterward – and it was open not only to us but to ANYONE who cared to come to it, even total strangers.
It is sometimes difficult (especially after such a devastating event where underground was really the only safety in many areas) to realize that the rest of the world does not do things that way. Maybe things will start to change somewhat in the wake of this tragedy. Can always hope.
I live in a mobile home, and it is scarry to know that this very well could have been my families home, or our lives lost. We lived in an area that didn’t see a tornado track but we did get high winds, and we were in Scottsboro when the debris ball came through that area but we were in the Courthouse basement seeking shelter. Thank God! I don’t think that I will be living in my trailer much longer. Dan Satterfield is the best meterologist in the Valley and I was scared to death without him on air during all of this!
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Dan, we appreciate you so much because you really care! We love you and may God bless you and strengthen you in your career which has helped save many a life. Thanks to all the Channel 19 news team. Continue to pray for Flat Rock and all the other areas that are affected by this horrible storm.
I also live in a mobile home aprox 3 miles south from the 4 way stop in flat rock but luckily we have a green house that is about 5 1/2 ft under ground that is where we went even tho we were sitting in water before the night was out but we still have our lives and our homes by the grace of god. There was a tornado confirmed in both directions of our house (within 3 miles either way you go)
[…] this mismatch, the most important of which seem to be the higher density of mobile homes, which are much more susceptible to tornado damage, in the more easterly states; and less appreciation of tornado risks because of the lack of a […]