This story was originally published in our July/August 2022 issue as "Seeking Shelter." Click here to subscribe to read more stories like this one.
April 25, 2011, was the beginning of a four-day “super-outbreak” of tornadoes that rampaged across the southeastern U.S., smashing both property and weather records as it went, and leaving an estimated 321 people dead.
All in all, 376 tornadoes touched down during the outbreak, 226 of them on April 27 alone. Three of the storms were EF-5s (the highest rating on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, used to rate the intensity of tornadoes), with winds over 200 miles per hour. Another 33 were EF-4s or EF-3s. The costliest of the monsters was a mile and a half wide — about the length of 22 football fields. The four-day event ranks as one of the deadliest weather disasters on record.
