We stood outside talking when Curt Staley and his friend, Randall, told us about how rough it was out on the water and how bad the radar on Waterfront`s TV looked.  Shortly after seeing there was supposed to be a tornado in the vicinity, the sky turned a greenish-yellow color. 

During this time, the weather seemed to slack almost to calm with just a light rain. Taking advantage of the slight break in the weather, I went and put the cover on my boat, which was parked next to the store.  No sooner than I had done that and went back over to talk to everyone, the heavy rain resumed and the wind intensified. Leaning against the soda machine outside the store, I didn`t feel the effect of the wind as much as the other anglers standing around. They decided to head into the store. Even behind the protection of the soda machine, the winds continued to increase to the point that I knew I had to find cover.  

Suddenly, the winds increased again and we noticed the awning over the gas pumps rocking back and forth three to four feet. One gentleman started to go to save his truck and boat, but he was hastily called back because of the dangerous situation. As soon as he was inside the store and the door closed, we heard a low roar and felt the building shake slightly. Everyone rushed to the windows to look outside. We saw trees start to snap and break at the launch ramp across the road. Then, looking to our left, we could see the wall of the funnel cloud -- not 150 yards away – filled with debris and causing devastating destruction. 

As we watched in amazement, the funnel cloud crossed the slough at Waterfront, hit Preston Island and headed out into the river.  At that point, an eerie silence fell. It was broken by a scared child crying inside the store then everyone talking at once. 

A car pulled up to the store and the driver told us there were cars on the road with people trapped inside by trees that fell on them.  Then emergency vehicles started to arrive and we were told that Hwy. 79 to Scottsboro would be blocked for an undetermined amount of time. 

To give you an idea of the devastation that we barely missed, the Huntsville Times posted pictures on this Web site,  http://blog.al.com/breaking/2009/04/slideshow_tornado_damage@la.html.

As you can see from the photos, it was a blessing that no one was seriously injured or killed in all the destruction.

After the storm cleared out, we tried to head up to Scottsboro to go to the hotel. Since the roads were blocked by debris -- both cars and trees -- we had to detour around Guntersville. On the way, we ran into two storms with golf-ball sized hail.  After slowly making our way toward the hotel, we arrived safely.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those people directly affected by the destruction this tornado left behind. Many people lost their homes and others lost their boats and automobiles. But thankfully on this day, no one lost their life. We were happy to see our friends all make it safe to our tournament the next day. The tornado didn`t stop 70 anglers from fishing our event!