I remember feeling so helpless out here in Texas watching it unfold when suddenly I started getting texts and Facebook messages that my hometown Smithville, MS was "gone". My mother, brother and two nephews lived there and I could not get in touch with anyone. I'm watching Tuscaloosa and Birmingham being obliterated on tv when I finally get a message from a good friend that it missed mom's house but my brother and nephew's house was at ground zero and it looked like F4 damage.
Finally, I reach my brother, he like many others was still at work. My nephews had randomly decided to leave the house and drive to the town just south of Smithville and missed the tornado by mere seconds, being shoved off the road into a ditch by the side winds.
Everyone in my brother's neighborhood who was at home and not underground died. If the storm had hit later in the day, there would have been so many more killed. My mother's house was 1/2 mile from the damage path and the power of that tornado shook the ground hard enough to crack the foundation in her home and many in her neighborhood. Although it was not publicized as much as other tornadoes, many experts consider it one of the most intense tornadoes that have been recorded.
My brother never rebuilt and sold his property to the city. Because it was a very large piece of land they built a memorial to the victims of the storm.
The town has never recovered really. It looks like a wasteland when it was covered by so many huge oak, pine and pecan trees.
It turned me from being a weather nut into a weather-obsessed person, researching the web on everything I could find about tornados and forecasting.
It may sound strange but I'm glad that tornado did not hit a more populated place and it happened early in the afternoon. It destroyed and killed but it could have been so much worse.
From Extreme Planet:
https://extremeplanet.me/2012/07/26...the-ef5-smithville-tornado-april-27-2011/amp/
From the NWS:
https://www.weather.gov/meg/apr2011toroutbreaksmithville
From YouTube: