Saturday was a scary day for many Alabamians, including the staff at the National Weather Service (NWS) office near Shelby County Airport. With multiple tornado warnings issued across the state, the team at the location was providing storm updates to the public, when according to WBRC 6 News, they had to follow their own advice as a warning was issued for their area.
The crew took shelter in a safe room in the building after turning control over to an NWS station near Atlanta.
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“We took shelter in our hardened safe room, and I doubt the public noticed a difference,” said Chris Darden, meteorologist in charge of NWS Birmingham. “It’s a weird feeling when you are getting up from your workstation and you have tornados inbound for a part of the metro but we also felt very confident in Atlanta that Peachtree City had it under control.”
“We practice these things. We drill these things. We do backups for Peachtree City, and they back us up. So, we test the process to make sure it’s working,” Darden said.
When the danger passed, the NWS team returned to tracking storms. Sadly, some of the storms became deadly.
“One person losing their life is one too many. We want that number to be zero all the time. Unfortunately, we had a couple, a few, that lost their lives yesterday [Saturday]. But we heard so many stories already of folks who got the warning, and they took shelter and they’re ok. So that’s fantastic to hear.”
“The whole team process worked yesterday. We had to take shelter. Atlanta took over. It was seamless. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.”
Sherri Blevins is a writer for Mountain Valley News and a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You may contact her at [email protected].
