Wednesday, November 15, 1989, started out as a normal day. However, residents of Huntsville would end the day with a deadly tornado hitting a busy road at the height of rush hour traffic.
Setting the scene
There had been previous tornado warnings on the storm that produced the tornado as it came through the counties in the western part of the state. The storm weakened as it came through Morgan County, prompting the National Weather Service to drop the tornado warning.
However, as the storm came over Madkin Mountain on Redstone Arsenal, a tornado touched down, with the first reported damage being to buildings on the arsenal. The tornado, which was "nearly invisible due to being rain wrapped," according to local storm spotter Chris Lisauckis, continued a path of destruction, through Airport Road's intersections at Memorial Parkway and Whitesburg Drive, across Jones Valley, through Brownsboro, through Salty Bottoms (near Gurley), and ending up at Killingsworth Cove. The "Tornado formed as the result of long lived squall line merging with long lived supercell over Redstone Arsenal," according to Chris. Chris stated that the 500mb air pressure dropped by 200 meters in one hour, which is the only time he can remember that happening, due to the intense low pressure of the storm.
Damage and destruction
There were over 20 fataities as a result of the tornado, with hundreds of injuries and millions of dollars in damage. The maximum width of the tornado path, near Salty Bottoms, was a mile wide. The tornado was rated an F4 on the original Fujita Scale.
Memorial
Today, there is a permanent memorial to the tornado victims. It stands at the intersection of Airport Road and Whitesburg Drive. The victims are remembered in the memorial, and those who survive can still remember what happened that night and be thankful that they made it out alive.
TO WATCH ALL SIX PARTS OF WAAY-TV'S "TORNADO '89", CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW:
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