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tearing up Coaling, crossing the interstate, and heading toward the Mercedes-Benz plant.
    While he was on the air, Jason felt his mobile phone buzz. He stole a quick glance at the screen. It was his cousin Bob from Holly Pond.
    Why are you calling me? he thought, annoyed. You know I’m on the air. You know I can’t answer the phone.
    He hit ignore and returned to the radar. That’s when he saw it, the angry red comma passing over Holly Pond. Over his parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The family farm.
    Yeah, he knows I’m on the air. That’s why he’s calling. They must have been hit. A surge of emotion made him blink and swallow. The storm was suddenly personal. Things just got real. James read his face, gave a nod.
    â€œGo take a minute. Get some air.”
    Jason stepped out of the studio and into the white cinder-block hallway with a beat-up striped couch, and tried calling his family. No answer. He choked up and called his wife, who had been trying to reach them, too, with no success. Jason pulled himself together and went back into the studio. The midstate storms began to dissipate, and the morning event wound to a close. The northern third of Alabama was still being pummeled by weak tornadoes, but the sky above Birmingham was clearing up—for now. When the ON AIR light went dark and the studio dimmed, Jason looked at James, and James looked at Jason.
    They said nothing.
    That said everything.

    Around 7:00 a.m., Central Alabama woke up to blue skies and sunshine. Several storms were still spinning upstate, but Birmingham and Tuscaloosa looked deceptively clear. Thirty-one tornadoes had struck Alabama, but many of the people outside their path had no idea anythinghad happened until they turned on the morning news or picked up the phone. Some of them wondered, Was that it? Is it over?
    James rushed straight from the weather desk to his office, a windowless room the size of a closet located in the middle of the building. This morning’s outbreak was just the opening act. Today’s atmosphere was a powder keg, and the source of energy that would set it off—the sun—was beginning its rise. If the morning had been this bad already, the afternoon would likely be off the charts. People would die. How many? That answer was something he considered a direct reflection of how well he did his job.
    Between his radio interviews and hundreds of e-mails, the damage reports poured in. A quarter of a million people in the state had no power. Five people were dead. Mobile phone towers had been knocked down, and the network was overloaded. Landlines were not working. Cable was gone. The Internet was out. It was a hot mess.
    The damage crippled the weather community. The storm had taken out equipment they needed to forecast and broadcast warnings. Meteorologists lost their radar feeds. Weather radio transmitters were disabled. SkyCams were busted. Communications systems were groaning under the weight of everyone calling at once to check on family and friends.
    â€œOkay, let’s start over,” James told his technicians. “Instead of telling me what is not working, tell me what is .”
    While workers raced to fix downed cameras and broken lines, Jason joined a morning news show called Talk of Alabama . He had to get the word out—at least to people who could still turn on a TV—that the day was far from over. This blue sky was a lie.
    â€œPlease, pay attention this afternoon,” he said. “This is not what you think it is. Get ready. This might be the last time some of us talk.”
    After the show ended, Jason walked over to the newsroom to brief the reporters. Usually when there is a weather situation brewing, he steps into the news director’s office and closes the door. But today it was time to make sure that everyone heard the alarm. He stood on aplatform behind the news desk and swore the apocalyptic warnings were not hyperbolic.
    â€œGary,” he