540 people (and rising ) missing in Tuscaloosa

[Ripley]

And DU chooses to argue about the Confederate Flag.

Where is the damned compassion given to foreign countries after disasters for the southern states that have been devastated?

My back feels broken after removing more shit from the April 15th F3 tornado that went over my house. But it is an anthill compared to the F5 that killed so many April 27.

Some of the hardest hit areas were poor neighborhoods...no insurance.

Unbelievable how someone could bring up the flag when thousands of people are dead and injured and suffering!

They need blood here in Tusc so if you want to help please donate to the Red Cross.

More than compassion will be needed in this area which is 50% African American.

This flyover shows the horror:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6giQ3csbUg&feature=player_embedded#at=43

[Cleita]

1. I'm so sorry for what you are going through.

That was a really bad ass tornado, but I guess the morons on the right will still insist that global warming is a myth.

[malaise]

2. Are you serious?

:grouphug:

Have the number of dead risen to thousands? I hadn't heard that.

[Ripley]

5. No, sorry

Not thousands dead, but thousands injured and dead. Don't know the death toll over the area but here it stands at an unbelievable number of 39 actually down from 45. Yet the missing rises.

[malaise]

8. I feel your pain

I saw a missing persons website so we really don't know the number of persons who died. This is really sad

[hlthe2b]

3. K&R.... I wish I could help more, but nearly anyone can give blood.

[Drale]

4. We can't discuss more then one issue at a time?

It was a terrible tragedy but do you want ever thread to be about the storms and the Japan nuclear crisis? If that was the case, I would stop coming here because it would be much to depressing.

[cordelia]

7. You're a real humanitarian, huh?

Friends and family injured, dead, unaccounted for, and you're worried about how
YOU might feel.

edit to remove how I really feel.

[Ripley]

10. How cold and young you sound

Of course I don't want to interrupt the usual (whatever you discuss here Drale) but I find it rather shocking that there is very little interest in the threads about the tornadoes. Especially in LBN where I had to go to the second page to even find a story about it. Yet plenty of Royal wedding talk.

Priorities seem skewed.

[Drale]

12. I read pretty much every threat that I see but

you can only have so many thinks about one subject. I feel really bad about what the people have to deal with, having gone through several tornadoes myself, but there are many subjects that can be and should be discussed.

[tekisui]

6. That video is astounding. Where did your number on missing people come from?

[Ripley]

13. The Tuscaloosa News posted the missing number earlier today

And about that vid - my house is one mile south of the bridge they fly over in the first minute. I can name all those neighborhoods and businesses that are no longer there.

Still in shock.

[BeyondGeography]

9. That thing was a mile wide

http://www.ncaa.com/news/football/2011-04-28/auburn-fans-offer-help-tuscaloosa

Horrifying.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Ripley.

[etherealtruth]

14. This is a horrifying tragedy

[Terra Alta]

15. it's a real tragedy

and I wish there were something I could do.. I can't even donate blood because I don't meet the weight requirement.

[RebelOne]

16. We lost a few lives here in Georgia.

One of the areas hardest hit was just down the road from me in Cartersville in Bartow County and farther up in Ringgold. It flattened quite a large area. My county was fortunate that the tornado skipped over it.

[defendandprotect]

17. Have any government agencies been in to help you all?

Who knows, that may be a worry in itself!!

Are they showing this on TV -- and wasn't Obama visiting your area?


:grouphug:

[Withywindle]

18. I'm glad you're OK, Ripley.

Sometimes I think DU just watches too much of the wrong kind of TV. I can't believe arguments about the royal wedding are getting so much obsessive airtime here. I didn't watch it. They seem like nice kids, I wish them well. I liked the pictures of funny hats. That's the full extent of my Deep Thoughts on that matter.

Meanwhile, there's a huge tragedy still unfolding right here at home, and it directly affects people right here at DU.

:hug:

[pitohui]

19. very worrisome

have a friend missing and it brings back terrible memories

he went to alabama to be safe after katrina

i do not watch storm videos etc because it causes too much stress but i just want to say...ignore the ignorant and focus on what's important, focus on taking care of yourself and others in need and finding the lost

my heart goes out to you

do not concern yourself w. the chatter of ignorant and bigoted people, just ignore them...some people are born shit stirrers and we should not give them the drama reward they seek

[Ripley]

20. A man named Frank moved here after Katrina

displaced him...he worked as a delivery driver for Steak-Out I believe (read this in the paper) which was destroyed. He survived somehow but must surely think Nature is on his tail! He's a cat with 7 lives left!

[laundry_queen]

21. I've been following

One thing that pissed me off this morning - pretty much all the major news stations were mostly still talking about the royal wedding. I think the amount of threads on DU about it reflect the amount of coverage in the MSM.

I had to flip several times until I found a station covering the tornadoes - Fox. i had to watch fox, ffs.

One thing I wish someone would do is start a charity for retrofitting homes in the south with saferooms. I notice so many stormchasers and scientists are concentrating on increasing warning times. I keep an eye on storms (I watch live feed from storm chasers so I like to see if it's going to be a busy day or not) and I knew days in advance it was going to be bad. There was a lot of warning. However, it doesn't matter how much warning time you have if you don't have a safe place to go in the case of a tornado. An interior room is just not going to cut it in the case of a ef-5 or ef-4 (heck, even an ef-2 can totally destroy a home). Homes in areas that are prone to tornadoes need safe rooms or some kind of underground shelters. It bothers me that people simply have no where to go in the case of a tornado. Where I live, there are very few houses without basements. I can't imagine being in a house, with a tornado bearing down on me, with only some 2 x 4's and drywall to protect me. Crazy.

My thoughts are with everyone who was affected by these storms.

[bluestate10]

23. From studying history, there was a time when public buildings such

as schools, city hall, ect were the places that people gathered during times of danger. But in a me first society, that sense of community has gone by the wayside.

[pinstikfartherin]

22. 354 total deaths across states; 250 in AL alone; 570 missing. N/t.

[Chris_Texas]

24. Why would you expect better here?

First, I have seen a fair few here actually make fun of these tornadoes as some kind of fitting retribution because the states impacted tend to lean Republican. And while I feel safe assuming that the mods delete idiocy like that as fast as they see it, none the less I have seen it posted here at least a couple times.

Second, I invite you to review the events in Japan and the threads posted here in response. One might think that the compassionate liberals here would focus on the mountain of water which obliterated a fair portion of that country, killing tens of thousands and destroying the lives of a million more. One might conclude this, but one would be incorrect. What seemingly matters most is politicizing that biblical disaster as a tool to advance an anti-nuclear agenda. Tye dead? the wrecked lives? The kids starving?

Forgotten.

[juajen]

25. It's overload. Too much tragedy, to much hunger, too much everything.

It doesn't surprise me that people all over the world are looking for some happiness in a royal wedding. We have tragedy after tragedy and it just doesn't seem to stop. Katrina, tsunamis, Haiti, The Gulf of Mexico, Japan, Texas storms and wildfires, Alabama, Georgia and more; destruction raining down everywhere. It's just piling on. People are compassionate. Here in LA we had Katrina, and the hurricanes that followed, then the destruction of our beloved Gulf of Mexico, and this doesn't even begin to address the number of the unemployed and suffering families. Everywhere we look is devastation. Sometimes we need to look at something that is just normal to distill the disquiet.

Am I the only one that is feeling helpless because of the magnitude of everything that is happening? As much as I disagree with some of Obama's policies, I feel so sorry for that man right now. It's too damn much.

[OneGrassRoot]

27. It is overwhelming, juajen....

It really is.

:cry:

So much suffering all over from natural disasters to what seems like an extreme degree.

And, of course, the ongoing, long-term suffering of so many on a daily basis living in poverty, living with sickness, etc.

:cry:

I stumbled upon a quote yesterday in "The 12 Steps of Compassion" that hit me as I considered the overwhelming suffering all around:

Those who have persistently trained themselves in the art of compassion manifest new capacities in the human heart and mind; they discover that when they reach out consistently toward others, they are able to live with the suffering that inevitably comes their way with more serenity, kindness and creativity.

I liken this to the one bit of advice I consistently offer my daughter: Do your best.

If we do our best -- allowing for times when we don't, but then commit to do our best the next time -- and do something no matter how trivial it seems to us -- it enables us to keep going and not spiral down into hopelessness. We can then keep trying to help and find ways to ease suffering, and maybe erase the cause of certain types of suffering altogether.

Sorry to ramble here...

:hug:

[Quantess]

29. These disasters really are coming at a fast and furious pace.

Is it just my imagination, or are there a lot more disasters happening than usual?

[Nostradammit]

28. I'm pretty confident that you're missing the point some are trying to make -

When someone says "God must hate the southern states" they are alluding
to the Southern Baptist preachers who never fail to attribute people's
misfortunes to God's wrath. It might be clumsy and ill-advised, but that's
what they mean when they say it.

As for the tsunami, anybody who's concerned about the bad effects of nuclear
power generation is probably horrified by the misery caused by the flooding, but
the succeeding disaster at Fukushima really does point out how bad that technology
is. The nuclear disaster has the potential to kill tens of thousands and destroy
the lives of millions more. Are you suggesting we ignore that because the tsunami
happened first?

[JackDragna]

26. I hate to sound cold-hearted, but..welcome to the net.

People here will not always show compassion. It's also possible to feel compassion for the victims of the tornadoes and also talk about other issues. I remember some pretty vicious things being said about Louisiana (my home state) after Katrina. Ultimately, if you want to be a participant here or any other net forum, you gotta be ready for salvos fired by people of limited empathy.