Quickly while I have network access, and mostly pasted from an email.

Feel free to pass all this to any friends, family or coworkers.

The area near us which had the most damage is called Anderson Hills,
and the same cell passed just north of my QTH and within sight, we
could see the rotation forming before the tornado formed. It destroyed
a neighborhoos about 7 miles from us, with fatalities.

I’ve been at the Red Cross chapter building today with my son Nick
(N1CKC), helping hook up phones, learning to deal with the generator,
and working the radio in turns with other folks

This area is much less affected than other areas – our problems are
mostly due to lack of power, and a lot of the calls we are handling
are for prolems like finding oxygen vendors for home bound patients.

We will probably be at the Red Cross again tomorrow, helping as we can.

The major hospital here is back on the grid, and the other two are
expected to be connected soon. TVA has said that they may have the
main interconnects to the city back up by Monday, and then the City
utilities will work as they can to restore power. Apparently power is
also restored to the water pumps so we should not run out of running
water. Also, the cell carriers are bringing in resources, so service
continues to improve slowly. Data connections are very spotty, and SMS is still more reliable than voice. Of course, HF has been very
reliable.

At home, we have our camping gear and a large bottle of propane, and
could cook for a week. Today is the last day we’ll be able to cook the
frozen food that has thawed, and we’ll be into canned goods and dry
stores. We’ll do fine, but by Monday we might be eating food we don’t
like too much. Not a bad problem to have in Alabama now.

I can’t think of much else now, the days run together a bit. I think
I’ll still make it to UDS, but I hope I have a chance to do laundry
first.

Thanks for the good wishes from everyone. I feel very fortunate not
only to have come through without any major problems for my friends
and family, but to be able to help during recovery. It’s been really
great to have Nick helping with me.

Until I’m connected again,

Steve