Your Memories: The 1989 Airport Road Tornado - WHNT

[Stephanie]

We were at home, at the time we lived on Thornton Circle approx maybe 5 miles from airport rd....The sky I had never seen that color, it was like orangey/pink.....it literally sound like a train. We watched the sky from my parents back porch (although we were kids, we were supposed to be in the tub witht the mattress over us), but my mom was on back porch so i went out there with her. You could hear glass breakin, I will never forget it ever. Afterwards we had heard on the news what all had happened so me & my mom went to Airport Rd to try & help, the destruction was unbelievable. I'm terrified of storms now thanks to hearing & seeing all of that. We cried in our cars over what all had been demolished and the people that were hurt. People were walking down the street, they had blood on them, cars were flipped onto their rooftops. I have never been able to get that image out of my head and I don't believe I ever will.

[PAM]

My Mom, Sister and I had come to Huntsville to do some shopping.
We came out of Pennys at the mall and commented on how warm it was for November. We started back to Florence and had to pull over around Athens because of the heavy winds and rain. We had gotten out just in time.

[William Porter]

The three main North-South routes (Garth Rd., Whitesburg, and Memorial Pkwy were all blocked to ALL traffic. No police, fire,ambulances could get through in either direction. Most of the phone lines were also down, and the ones that were working were saturated with calls from people trying to call home or loved ones to find out if they were OK. Redstone Arsenal opened it's gates to allow traffic to go through the arsenal to exit to S Parkway on Martin or Redstone roads. I stayed up most of the night listening to police scanner. It was chaos. It hit about 4:35 PM.

[DOROTHY JONES]

My husband Kenneth Jones and I was living in Huntsville Alabama in 1989, I was pregnant with twins, my husband was at work, and i just gotten home from Husville Hospital.Daylight turned pitched black, I was so scared I mean scares. I had my best friend friend daughters over with me. they went to the door to look out I YELLED SHOUT THAT DOOR.I heard the sound of a train that was the twister. all I could was pray and pray that God would put his protect my husband, and his co-workers while they was at work. and bring him home safe to me. you know God did just that for me. when I pray I pray for everybody. The good news December 24th 1989 I had our babies we had a boy and a girl twins I still thank God everyday. Hunsville Alabama will always be my home.

[KWalker]

I remember that day clearly. I was sixteen years old, a student at Grissom and I worked for Blankenship and Robinson. Blankenship and Robinson was a law office across the street from the courthouse. At five o,clock I walked out the door to get in my car and drive home, but something stopped me. It simply looked and felt strange outside. Instead of going home, I sat down inside the office and waited. If I had left I would have been smack dab in the middle of the action. I would have been turning left on Airport from Whitesburg somewhere around 5:10...

[Kim Goode]

I worked for Channel 19 as a news photographer at the time. I remember how the lightening polls were snapped in half. They looked like the way you could snap a plastic straw in half. I thought how much wind it would take to snap them like that.

I also remember an older couple coming back the next day to try and find their car in the massive pile of cars in the parking lot. I took them over an hour but they finally found it. It was undrivable.

It was a national story, all three networks and CNN had satellite trucks here to cover the destruction. The night it happened all the kids at Space Camp were given money and had to call home to let their parents know they were OK.

Speaking of calling home. I had called my parents in the Shoals to let them know I was OK right after it happened. Phone lines were hard to get after that because everyone was doing the same thing. When my parents got to Church that night everyone was asking if they heard from me? My mom's comment was "do you think I would be here if I hadn't" But other people had not heard from their loved ones and very worried about them.

I also remember after the sun came up one reporter asking Jerry Hayes if he had seen the golf course yet? They decided their golf game would improve since there were so few trees left on the course. It took a lot of humor to get through those days when even sports reporters became news reporters. The sign on what was left on one house out in the county said "every body's OK and Bama's 10-0"

[Shelley Tucker]

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was 15 at the time and not in the direct path of the tornado but terrified none the less. My mom was at work (or so we thought), at Lucky's Supermarket on the corner of Airport and Whitesburg. After all was said and done she lucked out because she had left work just minutes before it hit. My step-father was sitting on the airport road overpass and saw the tornado go right in front of him. This event sparked my interest in weather. I am fascinated by the power of mother nature. It can be beautiful and destructive at the same time.

[Katherine]

My mother and I were in Hancock's Fabric on Airport Road 15-20 minutes before the tornado destroyed the shopping center. I'm grateful to God everyday that we had leave and pick up my brother from A.B. Stevens. We got home to the Medical District just in time to seek shelter. It's hard to believe that it has been 20 years. My thoughts and prayers go out to all who lost family and friends that day.

[Becky]

I was a Freshman at Grissom High School and we were at basketball practice that day. I remember one of the other coaches coming in with a grim look on their face and telling all of us that a bad storm was coming and we needed to get home fast. So, we all left. As soon as I got home my parents had our closet cleaned out and we immediately got in it. We lost power and were a little out of the loop as to what was going on. We had just bought a new van and it was one of the first ones to have a TV in it so we were able to pick up the local channels on that TV in the van and we sat out there watching the news and seeing pictures of all the rescues going on.

When I got to school the next day, I remember the teachers in each class taking roll very serious and if someone was absent they asked everyone questions as to whether or not we'd heard from them to make sure they weren't one of the victims. One of our classmates' father was killed in the tornado. That afternoon I remember driving over Carl T. Jones with my mom (it was a very new road at that time) and as we came over the hill my heart sunk. We had seen all the pictures on TV but looking down at all of that destruction in person was indescribable.

[charles watson]

i went down to assist in removing vehicles that were torn up or in the way of emerency personel trying to get thru. i remember getting into a 4 door jaguar that was at whitesburg and airport and all of the windows were blown out of the car, but there was an open bible on the passenger seat without any water or daamage to it at all. the power poles were twisted like pretzels, and it suddenly got cold after being 80 degrees or so that day. we worked on pulling vehicles and people out of the BP station on the corner for two hours or more, and then we moved toward the golbro building, with the smell of the alcohol from the state liquor store that was demolished. i have never seen that much destruction, nor do i ever want to again.

[Susan]

This day.. Nov 15, 1989,.... every little detail, will live with me for the rest of my life. I was one of the fortunate ones bc luckily for me, the tornado picked up & went over the mtn. It was headed straight for me as I traveled down Whitesburg but luckily for me, it was not my day to die. We didn't have any warnings and at that time, we were not weather alert... That all changed on Nov 15, 1989. However, I remember looking at the sky towards the south Arsenal... the sky was an eerily green. I remember that. Another lasting memory is how many cars were lined up to turn east on Drake... even at midnight, cars were lined up for a great distance....Most of these people were mothers & dads trying to get to their children in schools & daycares off Drake Ave.
Mary Jane Caylor lead the school system throught the night by running a command post at Huntsville Hospital for the Jones Valley kids & parents. She did an excellent job during that crisis. Many have no idea what an inspired leader she was. I remember that she rode the school bus with the kids the first day the Jones Valley kids were tranported to Challenger. We, the citizens of Huntsville, were so lucky to have all of those empty classrooms at Challenger. It didn't take long to fill them up...

[Derrick Randolph]

Yes I remeber it well. Ihad just picked up my best friend from football practice at Brewer High School. We were a good 30-40 miles from the area where the tornado touched down. But I remember seeing the blackest cloud I have EVER seen in my life justover the rive and mountains. We both agreed it did not look good and we needed to go on and get home. So we went t his huse in Somervlle. I called my mother who lives in Decatur. She said we needed to be watching and lok out cause they just got out of the storm pit and had softball size hail she told me all the cars were totaled and the roof was damaged. It was then we turned on WHNT 19 news and they were blown off the air from the storm as we were watching it hit. The next thing i remember is that we turned thae TV back to WHNT after about 30 40 min. and they were on emergency power and said a HUGE tornado had just hit Huntville. IT was very scary. I have famly in huntsvile. My cousins car had been picked up and slammed agains Jones Valley School but they were ok. Thank God.

[Ed Nicholas EMT]

I had taken off early that afternoon from my job at Theatrical Lighting Systems to kill some overtime. When I got home our dogs were acting very nervous and upset. I decided to head over to the Huntsville-Madison County Rescue Squad where I was a volunteer just in case. I had barely gotten started when I heard HEMSI MEDCOM advise that a Tornado had touched down at the Police Academy and was headed East. I then heard Jerry Slaughter , a Paramedic responding to Airport and the Parkway radio in that " It's gone - the whole shopping center is gone !" I got to Rescue Base and got with Joe Donaghue and headed to Airport and Whitesburg, the second Rescue Squad truck to arrive. The intersection looked like the back side of the Moon - totally alien. Nothing was familiar. Injured people were coming out of the darkness looking like some horror movie, but it was real. We started basic Triage and sent the "Walking Wounded" toward the only light in the darkness - Crestwood ER's light which had power. After a bit we got word that there were some people trapped under the rubble of what had been Goldbro's Jewelry Store. Joe and I headed over while I asked MEDCOM to have members of the Huntsville Cave Rescue Unit respond. As their Operations Officer, I knew they would respond with helmet mounted lights and could work with both hands in the darkness and rubble.( Little did I know that my wife K watched the tornado go by from her work just north of Airport and was already hard at work with other HCRU members on the West side of the disaster area). We got to the rubble pile and found a pipe stretched straight up showering everybody with water. With the help of two HCRU members Carl Craig and Greg Freese, we tunneled down into the pile and found a salesman trapped under a long sales counter. He was lying on his side, in about 6" of water and mounds of jewelry. He was in pain and scared but not bleeding as far as I could tell. With the help of a jack "borrowed" from a wrecked car on top of the rubble pile, we were able to raise the counter up enough to slide him out over our bodies to the surface where others loaded him into our litter to take him to Crestwood. I later heard he was one giant bruise but had nothing broken. The rest of the folks were inside the walk-in safe and were OK after the rubble got removed from around the door. One of the most memorable sights of many that night was news photographer Kim Albright making like a human light tower lighting up the darkness so that the folks on the surface above us could see to work. No camera, just lights, helping folks see to help others. Not the first time I had seen Kim do that but certainly the most memorable.
We then started checking other buildings less damaged. We headed into a church on the south side of Airport that had lost most of its roof. When we entered the foyer, we saw about 20 or so children’s lunchboxes lined up against the wall. We couldn't see into the main sanctuary, but our hearts dropped and I remember thinking, "Please God, not the kids..." We got into the sanctuary, the roof was gone but no kids. We learned later that the counselors took them out early so they were all OK. Things like this continued all night. I remember Mayor Steve Hettinger talking to the news media with a coat and tie on with snow falling on his hair and trying to keep it together.
So many images of a great bunch of folks coming together to help their fellow man. Unknown and unsung Heroes all. God Bless.

[Catherine Pettus]

I remember watching the breaking news on tv and I knew my then 19 year old son who was living on Airport Rd should have just gotten home from work about the time the tornado hit. Electricity was
off and the phone lines were not working. It was after 9 that night when he and another boy had walked across Huntsville wet and
cold to their old apartment and was able to let us know that they were alive. It had torn up their apartment on Airport Rd. where they had just moved most of their belonging a few days before. They still had a few days on their lease in their Woodway Pines apartment where they stayed that night until we could get over there early the following morning. It ruined all their belongings and vehicles but how thankful we were that they were alive. A lot has happened in the past 20 years but our memories have not dimmed about the tornado of 1989.

[Catherine Pettus]

I want to thank everyone who helped the night of the Nov. 1989 tornado. My then 19 year old son was
living on Airport Rd. working and attending RETS at night. The people of Huntsville clung together to help those who needed help ever so badly.

[Georgina]

I was a junior in high school and had the TV on when they broke in saying there had been a tornado that basically destoryed everything in downtown Huntsville and much damage everywhere else. At the time we didn't have the warning system we have now so I went to my families storm shelter and took a radio and waited it out until they said all clear. When we came out we got news reported out of a Chattanoga station telling us just how many people had been killed and hurt and I just remember praying for them and their families. I couln't believe what had happened, it was just a great shock.

[Debbie Holliday]

I many ways it does not seem to be 20 years since that day. I was in my Dodge Dart at the STOP sign, the corner of Balmoral and Airport. I had no idea a tornado was coming. The wind picked up; it got so black I couldn't see outside my windshield. I started to excellerate to get across the intersection. Then I closed my eyes because I know there was no way to get away from whatever was happening. There were many hard hits, then everything became calm. I don't know how long it took before opening my eyes. I heard cries, I smelled gasoline, I was shaking and had glass everywhere. I found I was upside down, still in my car. I want so much to thank the young man that helped me out of my car. I have tried twice to find him. Noone has stepped forward to say he helped. There is more to the story, but I don't want to take up any more space. I will be there for the Moment of Memory on Sunday.
God bless,
Debbie Holliday

[Debbie Holliday]

Jhon, I just read your statements about Nov. 15, 1989. I had just posted some of my thoughts too. I am still teaching and I am very thankful to be around 20 years later.

John Calvarese wrote:

I was the principal of Challenger Middle School at the time of the tornado. The school had just opened in the fall of '89' and we were getting ourselves established. The afternoon of November 15, 1989 will be forever etched in my memory. We still had several students in the building involved in after school activities. When the sirens went off we got everyone to safe areas in the building. Fortunately for us the brunt of the storm was not coming our way, but was it headed across the arsenal and toward Airport Rd. After the storm passed parents began picking up students and taking them home. Little did we know about the damage that was done on Airport Rd! It wasn't until I received a call from Dr. Ralph Green who was the Deputy Superintendent of Hsv City Schools. He said, " John we've lost Jones Valley School." I said, "what do you mean?" He said, "the school was destroyed by the tornado!" Then he said, "John, you and Ellen Marks(Challenger Elementary Principal) need to come up with a plan to house the staff and students of Jones Valley School." After I got over the initial shock of our conversation, Ellen and I did just that! For the next year and a half, Jones Valley students, teachers and staff were housed in our buildings while their school was being built. It was a massive undertaking, but everyone worked together to see that the Jones Valley Students were well taken care of.
From a personal standpoint, at the time I was living in an apartment on Chateau Dr. I didn't know if my building was still standing or not or how I was going to get to it because of the devastation on Airport Rd. I was able to wind around through the neighborhood and finally arrive at my apartment building which was still standing. We didn't have power, but the building was otherwise okay. Yes, it was a night to remember, one I won't ever forget. Thank you for allowing me to share my memories with you!

[Debbie Holliday]

OOps, I just saw that I spelled your name crazy!!!! Sorry John.

[Mchs2002]

I remember that day. I was a student at Central Elem. I don't remember what grade I was in at the time since years had past. But I do remember going into a hallway around 2:35pm and staying squat down on my knees with my hands over my head for a long time. The teachers and prinicpals were going around checking to see who was doing what they were suppose to do. I remember alittle after 3pm one of the teachers coming to me and telling me "you're being checked out." Then as I was getting up to walk to the office with one of the staff as safety precaution I remember looking out the glass window by the doors and on the doors and it look it was getting night time very earlier. So after I had been checked out and was going to the car. I heard sirens going off and when we got home we turn on the tv. And we were flipping through channels to figure out what was going on and I heard Gary Dobbs from Waay31 say "Tornado on the ground near the golf course on airport rd and it was heading towards downtown airport rd. And it was heading towards us. We then tried to seek shelter at a church that we know but when we left home it was pitch black. There was nothing to see in front us. It look like we were driving in a field. So then we decided to turn around in a nearby driveway and went back home.And as we got back home sirens were going off like crazy. Then my family got home and one of them told us that the tornado had torn airportroad all to pieces and was heading towards paint rock. But I could remember was how lucky we were. I got up the next morning after the storm had past and going to town and you barely get through it looked horrible. It look worse than hurricane katrina or hurricane andrew. Well that's my rememberance of the tornado I will never forget it never.