HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — It’s been 35 years since the Airport Road tornado touched down in Huntsville.
It took the lives of 21 individuals, injured more than 400, and left a scar on the entire city.
“There was literally no warning that a tornado was coming,” said Former News 19 Anchor Jerry Hayes.
Jerry was working the anchor desk on November 15, 1989, when the tornado hit.
“I was walking down the hall of channel 19, looked up and saw that the sky was green through the skylight and remarked to one of my coworkers, ‘it doesn’t look good,'” he said.
It was just minutes later that a deadly tornado ripped through Madison County.
“I don’t think anybody was expecting an F4 Tornado to roll down airport road that day,” Jerry said. “We certainly didn’t think that we would have any kind of loss of life that we did.”
The weather tracking technology wasn’t as advanced as it is now. Jerry said they were only expecting severe storms that day.
“The majority of those people who died that day were on their way home, some were running errands,” he said. “It was 4:30 in the afternoon, and they had no idea of what was coming.”
Jerry spent the days following the tornado in the middle of the destruction, speaking with people who lost everything they’d ever known, including their loved ones.
“Those were our neighbors.” Those were family members. Those were somebody’s mother and father and brother and sister,” he said.
Even three decades later, he said it’s hard to drive on airport roads.
“The physical scars have healed, on the area that was devastated, you know, the emotional scars stayed with people for the rest of their lives,” Jerry said.
Now, a memorial stands at the intersection of Airport Road and Whitesburg Drive.
“I hope people will drive by that memorial now and notice it and say, oh, that’s to remember the lives we lost that day,” he said.
Because the infrastructure may be fixed, but the tragedy’s impact is still felt in our community.
“We need to remind people of what happened,” Jerry said. “It’s part of our Huntsville history, as sad as it is, we don’t need to forget about them.”
