What Stands in a Storm
Monday marks the fourth anniversary of a massive tornado outbreak where 62 tornados raked across Alabama in a single day. More than 250 people died from those storms on April 27, 2011. Writer Kim Cross chronicles that time through several personal stories in her book What Stands in a Storm. It grew out of an article she wrote for Southern Living magazine. She spoke with WBHM’s Andrew Yeager.
An extended interview:
Interview Highlights
Developing the book:
I really started by looking at children’s books about meteorology to understand the basics of tornados. And then from there I graduated to textbooks and a lot of interviews with meteorologists. I wanted to wrap my head around the magnitude of the storm…That one day was part of a three day outbreak that affected 21 states from Texas to Canada. It was just massive.
I wanted to understand the event and then I wanted to tell it through the people who lived it. I really wanted it to be literary nonfiction where it reads like a novel but it’s all based on reported fact.
How technology helped her reporting:
The families of several victims friended me from from their victims’ Facebook page and they also shared with me text conversations recovered from their phones. And between these two things I felt like I was able to really get verbatim dialogue that was timestamped and that reflected what they were thinking at a very specific moment in time. So whenever I say that someone is thinking something or express their inner thoughts like a novelist would, that comes from either a social media post or a text or something that they said they were thinking to a primary source that was able to recount it to me.
Reaction from victims’ families:
One of the things that I did to fact check this that I don’t think a lot of journalists do is I sat down with each of the families and had a private reading where I read aloud every chapter in which their loved one appeared…I wanted to make sure the first time they experienced it was with me and not alone in a room and we cried together. We cried the ugly cry. And it was really good for both of us. And it was closure I think in this big long really difficult process.
Mentally ill people are stuck in jail because they can’t get treatment. Here’s what’s to know
Hundreds of people across Alabama await a spot in the state’s increasingly limited facilities, despite a consent decree requiring the state to address delays in providing care for people who are charged with crimes but deemed too mentally ill to stand trial. But seven years since the federal agreement, the problem has only worsened.
Ivey appoints Will Parker to Alabama Supreme Court
Parker fills the court seat vacated by Bill Lewis who was tapped by President Donald Trump for a federal judgeship. The U.S. Senate last month confirmed Lewis as a U.S. district judge.
How Alabama Power kept bills up and opposition out to become one of the most powerful utilities in the country
In one of the poorest states in America, the local utility earns massive profits producing dirty energy with almost no pushback from state regulators.
No more Elmo? APT could cut ties with PBS
The board that oversees Alabama Public Television is considering disaffiliating from PBS, ending a 55-year relationship.
Nonprofit erases millions in medical debt across Gulf South, says it’s ‘Band-Aid’ for real issue
Undue Medical Debt has paid off more than $299 million in medical debts in Alabama. Now, the nonprofit warns that the issue could soon get worse.
Roy Wood Jr. on his father, his son and his new book
Actor, comedian and writer Roy Wood Jr. is out with a new book -- "The Man of Many Fathers: Life Lessons Disguised as a Memoir." He writes about his experience growing up in Birmingham, losing his dad as a teenager and all the lessons he learned from various father figures throughout his career.
