海角大神

Tweets, text messages and Facebook posts are more than just addictive and pesky mainstays of modern life. When disaster struck the South in the spring of 2011, technology revealed its power to unite a region in grief and generosity.

Nobody understands this better than journalist Kim Cross, author of the riveting new book What Stands in a Storm: Three Days in the Worst Superstorm to Hit the South's Tornado Alley.

When a tornado tore toward her Birmingham, Ala., home, she huddled in a laundry room with her family and her smartphone, furiously searching for updates. Cross, then working for Southern Living magazine, soon found herself reconstructing a devastating tornado outbreak that left 245 dead in Alabama alone. She鈥檇 uncover the remarkable power of tweets and texts to bring people together and keep them safe 鈥� before, during and after the storm.

That鈥檚 not all. With deep sensitivity, Cross powerfully profiles the TV weathermen who try to warn the public despite ever-present false alarms, the scientists furiously working to better predict tornadoes, and the grieving residents trying to fend off despair through community and faith.

鈥淧eople looked for miracles and found them, and that gave people a lot of strength to get through it,鈥� Cross says in an interview with the Monitor. 鈥淏eautiful things come from brokenness. The things that tear our world apart can bring us together.鈥�
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Q: Readers from elsewhere may be surprised to learn that the Deep South 鈥� 鈥淒ixie Alley鈥� 鈥� is a hot spot for tornadoes. How does that region compare to the Midwest and Tornado Alley?
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The Midwest has a greater number of tornadoes, but the South has more big ones. When spring rolls around, it鈥檚 part of living here, something that everyone eventually gets used to. It鈥檚 sort of like earthquakes in California: You know they happen, but you don鈥檛 think about it every day.

I grew up in both California and Alabama, and I remember having to do very much the same thing in school. In California, you have an earthquake drill where you get under your desk. In Alabama, you get in the hallway, tuck into a ball and cover your head with your fingers.
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Q: What are some differences between tornadoes in the Tornado Alley and the South鈥檚 Dixie Alley?

It鈥檚 a lot safer to chase tornadoes out there in the Midwest because roads are in a grid pattern. In the South, particularly in Alabama, the roads are winding. Birmingham and Northern Alabama are in the foothills of the Appalachians, and the roads spaghetti all over the place. You rarely see the horizon, and it makes it very dangerous to chase tornadoes because you can鈥檛 assume that the road you鈥檙e taking will get you out of the way.听 Also, here tornadoes tend to be rain-wrapped: The funnel can actually be hidden behind a curtain of rain.
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听Q: What is the state of tornado forecasting?
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Forecasters can detect conditions when tornadoes form, but that doesn鈥檛 necessarily confirm a tornado. The only way to confirm a tornado is for someone to lay eyes on it.

The huge dilemma of forecasters is that they can see a signature of what looks like a tornado, but it may or not be, and they have to make a call about whether they want to warn about it. If they do issue a warning, it could a false alarm and increase people鈥檚 complacency. But if they don鈥檛 warn about it, people die.

Since the 2011 superstorm, they鈥檙e using听 more dual-polarization radar, which allows you to not only detect the presence of some kind of matter in the air, whether it鈥檚 bugs or precipitation, but actually see an indication of the shape of it. A meteorologist can look at a radar screen and say 鈥渢hat鈥檚 rain鈥� or 鈥渢hat鈥檚 debris鈥� with a greater degree of confidence.
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Q: What happened when the tornado came near your home?
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We were hearing about storms a week ahead of time, and we knew they鈥檇 be bad. I remember seeing the first tornado of the day on live camera, and then we watched as the big one headed toward Tuscaloosa.

I was sitting with my husband and my son, who was then 3 or 4, thinking, 鈥淥h gosh, this doesn鈥檛 feel real. People are dying right now.鈥� You feel like you鈥檙e watching a movie, and someone鈥檚 playing a trick on you.

We鈥檙e watching it with great trepidation, then sirens start wailing and the power turns off. There鈥檚 this horrible silence when all the sounds you鈥檙e used to grind to a halt. We went into our safe room, a laundry room at the center of the house with no windows and away from doors. I remember getting my phone out, and at some point the forecaster called out my neighborhood. It got really scary. The tornado came about 7-10 miles away.
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Q: What struck you about how people reacted to the tornados?
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I was impressed by the speed at which people started rescuing each other. The authorities did a great job, but people didn鈥檛 wait. They just started digging for each other and helped strangers. In the immediate aftermath and the recovery, I found that really touching.
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听Q: How did social media change how people reacted to the tornados?
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You have many more sources of information. You can watch TV on your phone, you can follow tweets of people, and alert your friends and family. After the storm, the phone lines might be down or overloaded, but a text can get through when a phone call can鈥檛.

Facebook and Twitter became mechanisms of spreading word about relief needs and supplies. It really changes the way people give. Before, if you wanted to help, you鈥檇 write a check and send it to the Red Cross. Now, someone can say 鈥淲e need diapers in Alberta City,鈥� and you could see that and respond to it and say, 鈥淚鈥檓 on the way.鈥� You could meet the person who needed it face to face.

That was a point of healing for both sides. You want to help, and it feels better to know you can help this young mother and hug her instead of giving money to a faceless organization. That made it deeply personal.
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听Q: Did any part of the reaction seem quintessentially Southern?
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The parking lots would fill with giant grills towed behind trucks and different church groups, people of different denominations and religions working side to side. The Methodists might do the prep, the Baptists the grilling, and another denomination handles delivery.

Sometimes you think, 鈥渢here鈥檚 nothing I can do to make things better, but I can make a casserole.鈥� A woman in a little Mississippi town called Smithville that got devastated by a category F5 tornado rallied her friends, saying 鈥淚 need cakes.鈥� Sixteen cakes came to her house, and they were just holding a sign that said 鈥淔ree Food.鈥�

They kept trying to feed us. We kept telling them we鈥檙e not victims, we don鈥檛 deserve their food. But it made them feel good, and they wouldn鈥檛 let you leave without at least an ice-cold Coke.
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听Q: What was it like for you personally to write the book?
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You feel squeamish and horrible asking people who鈥檝e lost a child to relive the worst day of their life. But I was surprised at the healing that came through the stories both for the families and for readers.
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听Randy Dotinga, a Monitor contributor, is president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.