Tuscaloosa Tornado Survivor's Journey

0:00It's April 28th. This is Birmingham News today, driven by AI. 15 years after a massive tornado ripped through Tuscaloosa on April 27th, 2011, survivor Tawana Witherspoon stood right. Back at the empty lot on 13th Avenue, where her apartment complex got wiped out. She sheltered her daughter and granddaughter in a closet as the sky turned nasty, time stretching out in those final seconds before the winds hit. Hard to do. Witherspoon's biggest worry was sparing her family from seeing each other hurt, but they made it through the quiet aftermath trapped at first until. Neighbors pulled them free, and like so many folks that day, they lost every single possession. Homeless after the storm, they crashed with friends who opened their home, my true family, helping kickstart the rebuild. These days, witherspoon's married with more grandkids, still dropping by that spot where the building's vanished, carrying memories that sting on this. Inversory, but prove you can heal and keep moving forward.