In April 2011, a massive supercell tornado cut a 150-mile-long path of devastation across northern Alabama. These are the stories of the people who survived.

People tell me, “Milton, that don’t make sense.” And I tell them, “Exactly! What I seen don’t make sense.”

Talking tornadoes with Justin Nobel.

I can imagine a world where tornado and typhoon have become forgotten and laughable words, and we no longer remember what it’s like to feel rain fall randomly from a cloud onto our faces or to be buffeted by a cold wind. That world frightens me.

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. 

Church steeples still lay on the ground, blue tarps turned homes into extensions of the sea. A human’s arms cannot encompass that loss. We make small boxes instead; we attempt to foil fate, we laugh, and we wait.