MADISON COUNTY, ALABAMA, Ala. — "What day is it? Oh yeah, April 27th, I remember that day..."
"Midday comes and pretty much everything goes black."
"I saw the sky, you know, the clouds, it looked strange, it's kind of spotty."
"Like the sky goes completely almost black in the middle of the day. It was crazy."
We start off by following one of my colleagues, Cornelius Joe II, and his story of living through the tornado outbreak.
First, let's go back in time to that day. Joe was working in a factory when the storm was coming about while his family was at home in Harvest, which ends up being one of the hardest-hit areas.
"I'm sitting there just listening to the radio and then they say Harvest, and my heart goes, *shutters* I know my heart skipped a couple of beats that day cause that's probably the scaredest I've ever been in life was that day because in Harvest is my wife and then 11-month-old baby, so, I haven't even been a father a year," said Joe.
After Joe was given the okay to leave the factory, he made his way home but on his way there, he experienced something eerie.
"I had to go down University Drive, there were no cars on University Drive, University Drive was black, there were no lights at all on University Drive, the only lights down University Drive were mine. It seems like you were in some kind of apocalyptic movie and everybody just disappeared. That's what it looked like that night," said Joe.
The native Alabamian makes it home to his wife and baby.
What he doesn't realize is just how much devastation was left behind.
"Wait out the night, wake up the next morning, get in the car to see what happened, and then we get on highway 53, Jordan Lane, and you can literally see the devastation by the time you turn on 53," said Joe.
He was able to show me the path of destruction...
...this damage caused was crushing - not only for residents but businesses too.
RELATED: Madison County first responders remember the April 2011 'Super Outbreak' on the ten year anniversary
"We were without power for a week. You start to realize how you can be pushed into the stone ages real quick, and a lot of restaurants their refrigeration went kaput," said Joe.
"Everything in the fridge went bad, so we had to throw everything out," said Owner of Phuket Thai and Sushi Restaurant, Suwit Phornroekngam.
The restaurant owner remembers watching the movie 'Twister' in Thailand thinking that ever being directly impacted by a tornado would seem... Impossible.
"I watch when I actually was in Thailand and you know, the movie about the storm chasers and I didn't think you know, something like that is very far away from me, and then in 1996 I move to Atlanta and in 2006 I move here and then, 'oh here it is, it's that twister, the real twister you know, it's not just a movie, it's real-life,'" said Phornroekngam.
Phuket is located in Providence and while the area didn't receive as much damage as Harvest, people still experienced loss. Power was out for nearly a week there as well, making life harder for residents and making businesses lose money.
"Everybody was affected in some way and it's basically made most Alabamians gun shy when the clouds look weird. Like legit, you are concerned because you're thinking, 'is today gonna be the day that it goes crazy again and we have that outbreak again' which is a real fear for a lot of people. Which I think is one of the main reasons why Alabamians, even Huntsvillians, really pay attention to weather because that is permanently seared into your memory the day that happened," said Joe.
WATCH: Full WZDX 2011 Tornado Outbreak Special
