News
By Jan Wesner Childs
April 01, 2021
At a Glance
- James Spann has covered severe weather in Alabama since the 1970s.
- His wife took shelter in their home as a tornado bore down on March 25.
- He texted her during live coverage to make sure she was OK.
Meteorologist James Spann has spent four decades covering severe weather in his home state of Alabama.
Spann's been live on ABC 33/40 in Birmingham during more tornadoes than he can even venture to guess, including devastating and deadly storms like the 2011 super tornado outbreak that claimed 300 lives.
But what happened during a severe weather outbreak on March 25 was a first.
His own home was hit by a tornado, his wife there alone, while he was on the air.
(RECAP: Severe Weather Outbreak Spawned Damaging Tornadoes in Alabama, Georgia)
The day started out routine, albeit one that was sure to be busy. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center had issued a rare "high risk" severe weather forecast from northern and central Alabama into southern Tennessee.
By around 2 p.m., a long-track supercell thunderstorm with several reports of tornadoes was bearing down on the Birmingham area.
Spann, a local legend in Alabama, was on-air as usual, calling the play-by-play and telling people in hyper-specific locations what time the tornado would pass through and what they should be doing to stay safe. During this time he is, as he put it, "laser-focused" on keeping people safe.
Be Prepared for Any Type of Weather with This Stylish Outerwear (SPONSORED)
The danger ramped up as the NWS declared a tornado emergency, the highest level of warning that the National Weather Service can issue for tornadoes.
Spann continued his live coverage as he watched the tornado roar closer to his own neighborhood in northern Shelby County.
“I had an idea, obviously, probably 30 minutes before it got there. But a tornado is small, even a big tornado, compared to a county or a municipality. You just kind of think well, it’s going to go north or south of there, we’ll be OK," he told weather.com in an interview.
”Once it got within about 10 miles, I’m thinking 'Uh-oh, this doesn’t look good,'" he said.
(MORE: April Starts the Most Dangerous Three Months For Tornadoes in the U.S.)
Advertisem*nt
Spann and his wife Karen will celebrate their 40th anniversary this year. She knows the drill when it comes to severe weather, and the couple has an EF5-rated tornado shelter in their home.
“But still you’re a little uneasy," Spann said. "It’s just a very uneasy feeling because I have seen so much pain and so much heartache over the years. And I know what these things can do and you just think, 'Oh goodness.’”
During the broadcast, he made contact with his wife.
“I just sent a simple text that said ’shelter now!'" Spann said. "And then she texted right back and she said ‘I’m there.’"
At one point, Spann said to his on-air partner meteorologist Taylor Sarallo: "I'll let you take it for just a second. Let me check on some folks here real quick."
A few minutes later, he said he had been mainly checking on his wife.
The station switched to solo coverage of Sarallo for several minutes until Spann returned and told viewers: "The reason I had to step out, we’ve had major damage at my house. I had to be sure my wife is OK. But the tornado came right through there. It’s not good. It’s bad."
Once he knew Karen was safe, he worried about what she might see when she emerged. At that point, he didn't even know if the house was still standing.
Later, he learned trees had fallen on the roof and around their home, but it was still intact.
Multiple homes and businesses in Shelby County were damaged or destroyed. Five people were killed farther to the northeast in Calhoun County. And several other communities were hit, from western Alabama into Georgia and Tennessee.
“I’ve had many situations where tornadoes would pass through places where I had friends or relatives, but not my home," Spann said. “You’d think in this part of the world it would happen more than once, but for me, that was the first time. It was a little different.”
He'd rather the focus be on the many people who lost everything to the storms that day. Spann suggests that anyone who wants to help should check the social media pages of communities most impacted. That includes places like Pelham, Helena and Ohatchee.
"There's some people with real needs and it's going to take a long time" to recover, Spann said.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
