Categories: Emergency Preparedness, Environmental Hazards and Health Effects, National Center for Environmental Health, Tornadoes
April 2nd, 2013 8:49 am ET -
Spring is the time of year when many things change—including the weather. Sunny days may be followed by a week of stormy weather. Sometimes extreme weather changes can occur within the same day.
Thunderstorms cause most of the severe spring weather. Whenever warm, moist air collides with cool, dry air, thunderstorms can occur, bringing with them lightning, tornadoes and flooding.
Categories: Emergency Preparedness, National Center for Environmental Health, Sharing Our Stories, Tornadoes
January 18th, 2012 2:11 pm ET - Dr. Christopher J. Portier
An Aarons Rental Store on McFarland Blvd in Tuscaloosa -
On April 27, 2011, Director Tim Hatch began his day at the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) thinking, “My schedule is finally clear.” It wasn’t long before he realized he should “never, ever say that.”
On that day, disaster struck. Tornadoes ripped through the state, causing death and destruction in Tuscaloosa, Cullman, and Birmingham as well as some rural communities in northwest Alabama. From 1:00 to 11:00 PM, Hatch was in the ADPH Emergency Operations Center in Montgomery, tracking the tornadoes and responding to the disaster. Hatch and staff members in health departments across the state were prepared to respond to the problems caused by the tornadoes in part because of the Environmental Health Training in Emergency Response (EHTER) course developed by CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health.
