John Hill was on the phone with his son, Beau, as a mile-wide tornado that killed 32 people in Tuscaloosa Wednesday night approached. Then, the connection went dead.
Repeated calls brought no answer from the University of Alabama junior and Kennesaw Mountain High School graduate. So the Cobb resident got in his truck and headed west.
"I kept thinking I was being crazy because I was headed into the storm but if you have kids you understand," Hill said. "Helpless doesn't describe that sick feeling when you are so anxious because of not knowing."
After about five hours, Hill finally reached his son on the phone. Beau and a friend escaped injury by ducking into the clubhouse of their apartment complex, which was left standing amid widespread destruction.
Boats from one store were tossed into the roofs of nearby apartments. Bustling 15th street was reduced to rubble.
"It looks like a mile-wide bomb was dropped down," said Hill, who arrived in Tuscaloosa in the early morning hours.
"There were absolutely no lights on. It reminded me of a zombie movie," Hill said. "I finally made it to within a couple of blocks [of his son's apartment] but police weren't letting anyone in."
Finally, at 5 a.m., Hill got to see his son. "I gave him a big hug around the neck," the elder Hill said.
Leslie Finley hopes to reunite with her daughter Savannah Thomas, an Alabama sophomore, later this afternoon.
Mother and daughter were on the phone when the tornado hit. Then, in a scene that repeated around Tuscaloosa, silence. Phone service was among the many casualties of Wednesday's storm, but after 15 minutes Finley connected by text message.
"It felt like an eternity," said the Milton resident. "I was crying, pacing the floor."
Her daughter was huddled, along with her sorority sisters, in the basement of the Zeta Tau Alpha house in the shadow of Bryant-Denny Stadium. Fortunately for them, the Alabama campus was among the safest places to be in Tuscaloosa. The university reported no structural damage.
Thomas texted her mother Thursday morning after venturing off campus.
"The McDonald's is gone. The Schlotzky's is gone," she reported as she drove down 15th Street, headed back, somehow, to Milton.
"She just wants to come home," Finley said.
The sophomore won't have to rush back for final exams, which were canceled Thursday by the university. Commencement ceremonies for graduating students were postponed until Aug. 6.
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