Tornado Strikes Enterprise/Ft. Rucker, AL

National Weather Service ^ | March 1 2007

[del4hope]

local news is reporting more fatalities reported in the Miller's Ferry area of Wilcox County.

[mware]

ENTERPRISE, Ala. — At least eight people are confirmed dead -- some believed to be students -- after a tornado slammed into a high school Thursday afternoon in Enterprise, Ala., emergency officials said.

State emergency management spokeswoman Yasamie Richardson said the fatalities "are in relation to the high school, but whether they are all students or some students and teachers we're not sure."

[fatima]

Oh No.

[CheneyChick]

Whoa - I just left Fort Rucker last week.... Lots of friends still there.

[Dante3]

How sad.

[jwparkerjr]

re: The only statue in the world honoring an insect

Actually I think it's the only statue anywhere honoring a pest, not just the boll weevil! As I recall they wanted to honor George Washington Carver for what he did to change the area's dependence from cotton to the peanut but couldn't bring themselves to erect a statue to honor a black man. So they chose the weevil that destroyed the cotton crop and forced them to turn to peanuts.

Not sure how true that story is, but I remember hearing it when I lived there in the 1960's.

[SE Mom]

The reporter on CNN took shelter at Ft Rucker and said the building he was in wouldn't have withstood the tornado- it was a whopper of a storm..

[jwparkerjr]

The owner of the Enterprise radio station I worked at in 1965 was the brother of the Mayor of Montgomery. I think his last name was James.

[spectre]

MSNBC is still carrying this live..

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

My local news reported the 8 were killed in the school and 5 were killed at a Miller's Ferry trailer park. They now report a total of 11 tornadoes were in the area.

[spectre]

Opps..back to Tucker.

sw

[SE Mom]

Just heard on the weather channel there are still an unknown number of missing students...you hear that anywhere else?

[Jrabbit]

Here in Texas, we have tornado watches and warnings all the time. I can't remember the schools closing early due to anything but ice/snow storms. Scary stuff...

[Jrabbit]

dang.....I guess those were the 8 kids in the gym that was reported earlier. So sad....

[daybreakcoming]

Went to an awards ceremony this am at our school and a squall line was just about to come through. I sat in my car and watched it coming wondering just how safe the school was - had my camera with me and took a picture of the sky. I guess this tragic event tells me no school, no structure is safe from these monster storms.
May God bless and comfort the families of those lost today.

[pinz-n-needlez]

Prayers up for you and everyone in this path.

We can replace stuff, not people...

[jwparkerjr]

Having been very involved in the news business for a lot of years I can attest to just how worthless any of the early reports are regardless of who is giving them. There is a sort of mental illness that infects a news room when breaking news is being handled. It's like they just completely lose their heads and they are so afraid of being scooped by another outlet that they feel compelled to report anything and everything. The most they do is to try to protect themselves by saying all reports are 'unconfirmed' or 'preliminary' or some such wording.

Information coming in from reporters on the scene is just about worthless. Everyone wants to talk to a reporter, or in my case have their picture taken, and the rumors fly like leaves in the wind.

Some early reports are basically accurate, but it's a crap shoot.

I was lucky, I was at the newspaper, but we shared a building with the company-owned TV station. We could wait until pretty late in the evening (10 PM or so) before we had to go on record. Downstairs at the TV news desk it was chaos! They had a 'super' desk arrangment with editors from the three news outlets, newspaper, TV and web online, at one desk. That was one of those ideas that sounded good on paper but didn't work out as well as expected!

[del4hope]

They did not close in the past. Unlike TX, we have the gulf moisture clashing with the tail end of the Appalachians. Past storms in recent years have, like today produced many fatalities, and now the authorities take these storms, especially in March and April, very seriously.

[Strategerist]

Possible tornadoes heading for Fort Benning and Macon, GA

[Crawdad]

http://www.geocities.com/skibbie61/weevil.html

History of the Boll Weevil Monument.