I got blasted outta bed by tornado sirens at 6:30 this morning. Went out on the front balcony and witnessed 100mph winds blowing, heard the swoosh...(turbo spool up sound) but didn't know where exactly it was. I got a bit of video with my phone, shot this from the balcony (nothing really impressive but some very high winds).

Watch video >

Got in the car about 15 minutes later, drove down Clark to Memorial Blvd, power was out through there, and on Memorial stop lights were laying in the middle of the street, signs blown out at McDonald's and Taco Bell at Northfield and Memorial Blvd.







Further down the street near Thompson and Memorial, Brookhaven Farms had multiple large trees snapped in half.







Street lights down at Cason Lane and Old Fort Pkway








Preliminary indications are an EF-0 tornado hit, but until the NWS can come out to survey the damage we won't know the official status.

There was tornado reported on the ground between Fayetteville and Manchester about the same time this morning, confirmed by storm spotters there. Have not heard any damage reports from that tornado though.

At 2 pm, I'm headed to North Alabama with Adam Reagan, Jesse Hines, and Jennifer Hines to chase.

Clip to CNN showing the tornado in Downtown Tuscaloosa

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2011/04/27/vo.tuscaloosa.tornado.WBMA.html

25 deaths per the newscast on the ustream link posted above. Wow.

Catoosa Co, GA is requesting a massive casualty trailer, people trapped in houses. This is awful. Incredibly tragic day.