RAPID RESPONSE

摘要

IATE IN THE AFTERNOON of April 27, an unusually powerful storm system swept across west Alabama. It spawned dozens of tornadoes, including one frighteningly massive funnel that touched down at the edge of Tuscaloosa and then made its way resolutely northeast toward downtown and the University of Alabama. Television and radio stations broadcast warnings; sirens wailed; people took shelter. Architect James E. "Butch" Grimes, AIA, was a few blocks from the center of town working in his office, located in a historic 1820s Greek Revival house, where he and his wife, Amy, live upstairs. She heard the tornado warnings on television and hurried down to tell Butch that the storm looked serious. The couple rounded up more than a dozen people—friends, neighbors, two infants, three dogs, and a cleaning crew working in their house—and made for the basement. There they watched on a television as the storm continued to vector toward them. They could only guess what was happening outside. Then the cable and cellphone service cut off.