Growing Up Before the Radar Era in West Central Alabama

There is a distinct sound to a Southern storm when you don’t see it coming on a screen.

Today, our phones buzz with apocalyptic overrides, vibrant red polygons flash across the TV like a high-stakes game of Tetris, and advanced Doppler radar gives us a minute-by-minute countdown of exactly when a tempest will rattle our windows. But growing up in West Central Alabama back in the early 1970s? We didn’t have cable TV. We didn’t have weather apps, sirens, or push notifications.

Back then, surviving the elements came down to three things: a printed forecast in the yesterday-fresh daily paper, a local evening news broadcast that was mostly just a guy guessing in front of a painted map, and Mom’s terrifyingly accurate intuition.

High Point Drive: No Radar, No Refuge

When we lived on High Point Drive, our weather tracking equipment consisted entirely of looking out the window. If a storm was brewing, you stared at the horizon to see how bruised and greenish-black the bellies of the clouds were getting, or you listened for that eerie, sudden silence—the kind that makes you think God just hit the mute button on the state of Alabama.

We really didn’t have anywhere to go when the sky opened up. If it rained and stormed, you had two choices: stay inside the house and pray the roof held, or retreat to the detached garage out back. The garage was a solid brick building, which gave us a sliver of comfort, but let’s be honest—it was mostly just a nicer place to get trapped. You just sat tight, stared at the brick walls, and hoped the atmosphere had someone else’s house on its itinerary.

This total lack of architectural optimism extended to our school days, too.

The Schoolhouse Safety Plan

When we were in elementary and high school, we didn’t have engineered safe rooms or reinforced bunkers. No, if a severe storm rolled in and the principal felt in his bones that a tornado was coming, the protocol was beautifully simple: the alarm would sound, and everyone would file out into the hallway.

We’d sit flat on the floor with our backs against the metal lockers, tuck our heads down between our knees, and just wait. To this day, I honestly don’t know if tucking our heads between our legs was actually meant to protect us from a flying piece of timber, or if it was just a grim logistics strategy to keep all the bodies in one easily identifiable pile for the recovery crews. But back then, that’s where we were, and that’s where we sat, offering ourselves up to the locker gods.

The Crescent Lane Commute

It wasn’t much better when we moved over to Crescent Lane. I vividly remember one evening when a massive hurricane was churning its way up from the Gulf. By the time it reached us in West Central Alabama, we were getting the heavy, residual spin-off winds.

In those days, you couldn’t tell when a tornado was embedded in the torrential rain. There were no sirens—honestly, I don’t think the county even owned one.

The wind got up with a fierce, unnatural howl and literally blew our small plastic swimming pool right across the road. My dad was at work, leaving Mom alone to referee us kids and save our lives. Across the road stood a two-story house. The bottom story was an open, two-car carport that didn’t even have a door on it. Realizing our own house felt about as sturdy as a cardboard box, Mom gathered us up, and we sprinted across the dark road into the gale-force winds.

We spent a couple of hours huddled beneath a neighbor’s completely open, doorless concrete carport while a hurricane raged around us. Was standing in an open-air garage during a windstorm the pinnacle of modern safety? Not by a long shot. But hey, it was the deluxe option we had at the time.

The Reality of the Old-School “Storm Pit”

When we would visit my grandparents and the weather turned ugly, we got to experience a different kind of Southern shelter: the storm pit.

A storm pit wasn’t a fancy, pre-fabricated storm shelter. It was quite literally a dark hole dug directly into the side of a dirt bank. The construction was incredibly primitive:

• The Floor: Raw timbers laid down across the dirt to keep your shoes from squelching in the mud.
• The Roof: Heavy logs laid across the top of the hole, topped off with a rusty sheet of tin.

When the skies turned that wicked shade of “we’re about to meet Jesus” green and someone finally decided it was time to head to the pit, the real Russian Roulette began. Before the family could pile in, one lucky volunteer had to go down first, crack the door, and poke around in the dark.

Because these pits were about as airtight as a screen door on a submarine, you had to make sure there weren’t any cottonmouths, black widows, or disgruntled raccoons camped out inside.

The Storm Pit Experience

No Radar ➔ No Warning Polygons ➔ Total Darkness

You stayed inside until you ran out of oxygen or got bored.

Once the “all clear” was given (meaning the volunteer hadn’t screamed), the whole family would pile into the damp, subterranean dirt hole. Someone would light a hurricane lamp, and we would just sit there in the dim, smoky glow, listening to the roar of the wind screeching across the tin roof directly above our heads.

There was no weather radio telling us it was safe to come out. You just sat there until your legs went numb and you collectively guessed the danger had passed.

Varieties of the Southern Pit

Several folks in the area had these pits, and they varied wildly based on how much money you had to throw at the illusion of safety:

• The Dirt Cheap: Just raw mud, rotting wood, and prayer.
• The Aristocrat: Concrete walls or cinder blocks.

I remember going into a neighbor’s timber pit one time where the overhead logs were visibly rotting and the roof was sagging under the weight of the wet earth. To be completely honest, being trapped in that collapsing grave-in-progress was infinitely scarier than whatever the actual storm was doing outside.

The Modern Shift: Community Shelters

Years later, the landscape of storm safety in Alabama changed forever—especially after the horrific tornadoes ripped through Tuscaloosa. The sheer destruction forced a reckoning with how we handle Mother Nature.

Now, if you drive through Tuscaloosa, Hale, or Pickens County, you’ll see community storm shelters. These are heavily engineered, above-ground steel fortresses, bolted deep into the bedrock. When a tornado warning hits, the doors unlock, and it’s a free-for-all until the facility hits maximum capacity. Once it’s full, the door locks, and you’re left to test your luck outside.

COMMUNITY SHELTER RULES

  ✓ Free Entry (First Come) 
  ✓ Above-Ground Steel Fortress  
  ✗ ABSOLUTELY NO FUR BABIES    

One rule regarding these shelters that often sparks furious debates on Facebook—but one that I personally support—is the strict ban on pets. If you show up to a community shelter with your dog or cat, you are staying out in the rain.

When a multi-vortex tornado is chewing up the asphalt down the road, there is barely enough square footage for the human beings trying to survive. They simply cannot afford to deny entry to a human being because someone else’s nervous, 80-pound Labradoodle is having an anxiety attack and taking up three people’s worth of floor space.

Good Neighbors and Peace of Mind

Though these community shelters have popped up all over our surrounding counties, I have actually never stepped foot inside one. Thankfully, we don’t have to resort to public lodging during a disaster.

The old Southern tradition of looking out for your neighbor is still alive and well around here. Our current neighbors have a beautiful, sturdy cinder block pit that they’ve graciously invited us into whenever the sky turns purple. Our other neighbor has a storm shelter built directly into the solid concrete foundation of their carport—which is a phenomenal place to hide.

Because we are blessed with neighbors who have actual bunkers, it never made financial sense for us to go through the massive expense of digging up our own yard. We know we can always trust the folks next door to leave a porch light on and save us a corner.

Looking back on the early ’70s, it is wild to see how much things have improved. The instantaneous alerts, the live radar tracking, and the highly accurate forecasts we have today are absolute lifesavers. We no longer have to rely on a faded paragraph printed in yesterday’s newspaper to figure out if a twister is currently hovering over our chimney.

Because let’s face it: reading yesterday’s print edition to find out if you’re about to get blown into Mississippi? That would be a really awkward way to go.