• Updated

As I sat miles away in another Alabama basement, eyes fixed on an iPad screen where meteorologists frantically traced twisting terrors on their maps, a dark funnel of fury carved a capricious path through Tallapoosa County. The storm — one of many in Alabama that night — roared into the countryside like an uninvited and unhinged guest, tearing trees from the trembling soil and scattering them in pieces along the countryside.