Monthly Archives: April 2011

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[This post was originally published on The Living Room Tumblr.] CNN’s top stories this morning. Sigh.

How lucky was the University of Alabama?

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Very lucky, as this excellent graphic from the front page of the Tuscaloosa News shows. Note the green area labeled “UA” — that’s the campus, and it just avoided a direct hit from the massive tornado that devastated Tuscaloosa: As things stand, life at the university has been tremendously disrupted — power out, nearby buildings destroyed, some student housing damaged,… Read more »

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[This post was originally published on The Living Room Tumblr.] These were the most intense super-cell thunderstorms that I think anybody who was out there forecasting has ever seen. If you experienced a direct hit from one of these, you’d have to be in a reinforced room, storm shelter or underground [to survive]. Greg Carbin, NWS meteorologist

War Damn Eagle & Roll Tide Roll

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[This post was originally published on The Living Room Tumblr.] Auburn fans on the receiving end of Tide for Toomer’s have started Toomer’s for Tuscaloosa to support their tornado-stricken rivals at Alabama. It’s a very small thing amid all the overwhelming, tragic devastation – now 272 dead and counting, seemingly putting yesterday’s tornado outbreak on track to become one of… Read more »

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[This post was originally published on The Living Room Tumblr.] My first Instalanche in more than nine months is bringing in almost 1,000 visitors per hour at the moment. I like Instalanches better when they don’t arise out of death and destruction, though.

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[This post was originally published on The Living Room Tumblr.] The death toll from yesterday’s historic tornado outbreak is now well over 200. Here’s my latest update, posted at the hangout of the late Alan Sullivan’s “rare readers.”

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[This post was originally published on The Living Room Tumblr.] When I tried to type “birthers” on my iPhone just now, it was autocorrected to “northers.” What does Steve Jobs know that we don’t??? Was Obama born in Canada???

Tornado calamity among the deadliest U.S. disasters of the last 60 years

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[UPDATE, 2:00 PM MDT: Since I composed this post, the death toll has risen from 247 to 272. So yesterday’s disaster is now #8 on the list below, #6 if you exclude manmade disasters, #4 if you also exclude heat waves, or #3 if you do all of that and you think the listed “Storm of the Century” toll is… Read more »