What Stands in a Storm

Andrew Yeager | April 24, 2015

 ========= Old Image Removed =========Array
(
    [_wp_attached_file] => Array
        (
            [0] => 2015/04/Storm-Cover.jpg
        )

    [_wp_attachment_metadata] => Array
        (
            [0] => a:5:{s:5:"width";i:600;s:6:"height";i:300;s:4:"file";s:23:"2015/04/Storm-Cover.jpg";s:5:"sizes";a:5:{s:6:"medium";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:23:"Storm-Cover-336x168.jpg";s:5:"width";i:336;s:6:"height";i:168;s:9:"mime-type";s:10:"image/jpeg";}s:9:"thumbnail";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:23:"Storm-Cover-140x140.jpg";s:5:"width";i:140;s:6:"height";i:140;s:9:"mime-type";s:10:"image/jpeg";}s:9:"wbhm-icon";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:21:"Storm-Cover-80x80.jpg";s:5:"width";i:80;s:6:"height";i:80;s:9:"mime-type";s:10:"image/jpeg";}s:22:"wbhm-featured-carousel";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:23:"Storm-Cover-470x235.jpg";s:5:"width";i:470;s:6:"height";i:235;s:9:"mime-type";s:10:"image/jpeg";}s:14:"post-thumbnail";a:4:{s:4:"file";s:23:"Storm-Cover-125x125.jpg";s:5:"width";i:125;s:6:"height";i:125;s:9:"mime-type";s:10:"image/jpeg";}}s:10:"image_meta";a:12:{s:8:"aperture";s:1:"0";s:6:"credit";s:0:"";s:6:"camera";s:0:"";s:7:"caption";s:0:"";s:17:"created_timestamp";s:1:"0";s:9:"copyright";s:0:"";s:12:"focal_length";s:1:"0";s:3:"iso";s:1:"0";s:13:"shutter_speed";s:1:"0";s:5:"title";s:0:"";s:11:"orientation";s:1:"0";s:8:"keywords";a:0:{}}}
        )

    [_edit_lock] => Array
        (
            [0] => 1429809026:26
        )

    [_imagify_optimization_level] => Array
        (
            [0] => 1
        )

    [_imagify_data] => Array
        (
            [0] => a:2:{s:5:"stats";a:3:{s:13:"original_size";i:98170;s:14:"optimized_size";i:57330;s:7:"percent";d:41.600000000000001;}s:5:"sizes";a:8:{s:4:"full";a:5:{s:7:"success";b:1;s:8:"file_url";s:51:"https://news.wbhm.org/media/2015/04/Storm-Cover.jpg";s:13:"original_size";i:23987;s:14:"optimized_size";i:10846;s:7:"percent";d:54.780000000000001;}s:9:"thumbnail";a:5:{s:7:"success";b:1;s:8:"file_url";s:59:"https://news.wbhm.org/media/2015/04/Storm-Cover-140x140.jpg";s:13:"original_size";i:6245;s:14:"optimized_size";i:4694;s:7:"percent";d:24.84;}s:6:"medium";a:5:{s:7:"success";b:1;s:8:"file_url";s:59:"https://news.wbhm.org/media/2015/04/Storm-Cover-336x168.jpg";s:13:"original_size";i:7593;s:14:"optimized_size";i:4405;s:7:"percent";d:41.990000000000002;}s:9:"wbhm-icon";a:2:{s:7:"success";b:0;s:5:"error";s:77:"WELL DONE. This image is already compressed, no further compression required.";}s:13:"wbhm-featured";a:5:{s:7:"success";b:1;s:8:"file_url";s:59:"https://news.wbhm.org/media/2015/04/Storm-Cover-600x300.jpg";s:13:"original_size";i:20869;s:14:"optimized_size";i:11544;s:7:"percent";d:44.68;}s:20:"wbhm-featured-square";a:5:{s:7:"success";b:1;s:8:"file_url";s:59:"https://news.wbhm.org/media/2015/04/Storm-Cover-300x300.jpg";s:13:"original_size";i:20351;s:14:"optimized_size";i:14812;s:7:"percent";d:27.219999999999999;}s:22:"wbhm-featured-carousel";a:5:{s:7:"success";b:1;s:8:"file_url";s:59:"https://news.wbhm.org/media/2015/04/Storm-Cover-470x235.jpg";s:13:"original_size";i:14018;s:14:"optimized_size";i:7200;s:7:"percent";d:48.640000000000001;}s:14:"post-thumbnail";a:5:{s:7:"success";b:1;s:8:"file_url";s:59:"https://news.wbhm.org/media/2015/04/Storm-Cover-125x125.jpg";s:13:"original_size";i:5107;s:14:"optimized_size";i:3829;s:7:"percent";d:25.02;}}}
        )

    [_imagify_status] => Array
        (
            [0] => success
        )

)
1675730078 
1429833676

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:

download

 

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.