The Scariest Tornado of All Time - Cordova

On April 27, 2011, Cordova, Alabama, was hit by one of the most violent tornado outbreaks in American history. The small town was struck by not one, but two powerful tornadoes in the same day. The first tornado hit at 5:18 a.m., catching residents in the darkness. Hours later, another tornado came through — this time, many people never heard the warning. For Cordova, it became a day of destruction, power outages, collapsing homes, and two direct tornado strikes within hours. But the story of Cordova is about more than the destruction. It is about how a small American town survived one of the darkest days of the 2011 Super Outbreak — and what happened when the second tornado arrived. In this video, we reconstruct what happened in Cordova on April 27, 2011, the two tornadoes that struck the town, and the events that unfolded between them.