Global Disasters | Witness to Disaster MEGA Episode | National Geographic

KAT: We're pretty small in the scheme of things really as humans. The power of Mother Nature is just incomprehensible. I couldn't understand that, I couldn't wrap my head around it. We were waiting. Waiting to die? Waiting to live? I didn't really know. PAUL: Do you hear that? The ground is shaking. Oh my god. We turned around and saw this wall of ice. Wait! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Here yeah, go full all the way inside. You're just thinking about is this the right decision at this particular point in time or not? And does it matter anymore? Close the door! KAT: We ran out of the building, it was pandemonium, chaos, the ground was rolling. I thought this is where we die. NARRATOR: In 2015 a massive earthquake rocks Nepal. PAUL: It's just like a plane crash or something. NARRATOR: The earthquake triggers massive avalanches that wreak terrible destruction on Everest and the remote valley of Langtang. Now survivors' footage, eye witness accounts and expert scientific analysis reveal how a series of critical events combined to create an avalanche that strikes with the power of half an atom bomb. (theme music plays). Nepal, the Himalayas, rooftop of the world and a mecca for mountaineers. PAUL: Hey, welcome to Base Camp. Here we are, yeah this is the Combi spot. Camp One is up to the right and Everest is behind all of this, you can't really see it. I was in Nepal attempting to climb Mount Everest, it's the last peak of my seven summers challenge to climb the highest peaks on all seven continents. Nepal, it feels different. It, it, it's a country full of mountains and you've gotta trek for days and days and days just to get sight of the mountain as well. I'd been on Everest itself the year before in 2014. The first time I had attempt to climb the mountain we got about 18 days in and there had been, unfortunately, a huge disaster on the ice fall which killed many Sherpa and so that expedition had to be canceled. When you get up there and into base camp and you see the 360 view of the worlds highest mountains it is quite magical. DAWA: I wanted to climb Everest like my father. My father is also a climber. NARRATOR: Mountain guide, Dawa Sherpa, has reached the summit of Everest four times. He too was a witness to the deaths of his fellow Sherpas the year before. But this hasn't stopped Dawa wanting to climb the mountain again. DAWA: My parents think that it's not safe and my parents also did a lot of investment for my education and they don't, they are not happy that I'm still working as a climbing Sherpa. NARRATOR: Attempting to climb Everest for the first time is geologist, Jim Davidson. JIM: I've been a hiker and a skier and a climber for 35 years but I also had a career as a geologist as well. I've been dreaming about climbing Everest for 30 years. It's one of the younger mountain ranges so it's very dramatic and you can just see the mountain forming and the glaciers moving and the valleys eroding. It's all right there in front of you. NARRATOR: 80 miles east of Everest is the Langtang Valley. KAT: The mountains blew me away, just hiking on the trails there's rhododendron trees and monkeys you know running around the trees. NARRATOR: Kat Heldman has been a climber for 20 years. Visiting Nepal has been her dream for just as long. KAT: You look up and these mountains are incredible. I mean they're like nothing, they, they were like nothing I had ever seen. It was kinda exactly what I imagine. It like made my dreams come alive it was really, really cool. NARRATOR: For those who live in the Langtang Valley it's a sacred place. NARRATOR: Born and raised in the Valley, Lhakpa Jangba is realizing the dream of his late father to run a bakery. NARRATOR: Back on Everest on April the 25th, Jim Davidson begins his ascent to the mountain with a dangerous climb from base camp across the ice fall up to Camp One, 2510 feet above. JIM: So we got up in the middle of the night, and left camp during the coldest hours, about 2:00 in the morning to try and climb through the unstable icefall when it's most cold and hopefully most frozen and not moving. Alright. That's a big crevasse. Gonna cruise on across, oo, oo love the movement. And arrived at Camp One around 8:00 in the morning. NARRATOR: Back at Base Camp Paul Devaney is waiting to make his ascent to Camp One the next day. PAUL: We were in our mess tent a few of us just sitting around playing cards. You know I think the WiFi had finally started working, so maybe trying to get some messages out, maybe get the odd picture out just before we head off into the ice fall. We've got a prime view of what we're going into next, so we're gonna head off into the Combi's fall and we're gonna follow a route, kinda right of center. NARRATOR: That morning the Langtang Valley is unusually busy with tourists and worshippers visiting a nearby Buddhist monastery to attend a ghewa, a ceremony to help the soul towards rebirth. Lhakpa Jangba is amongst them. NARRATOR: Afterwards Lhakpa briefly visits his mother in Langtang Village before the three hour walk up the valley towards his bakery in Kyanjin Gompa. That morning Kat Heldman is also in Langtang Village. KAT: But we didn't really have that much time you know in each little village and I particularly wanted to stay in Langtang but Oskar our climbing partner is very much a stickler for time, for sticking to the schedule. So you know he, he always made sure that we left on time. NARRATOR: So at 8:30 Kat's group also heads up to the village of Kyanjim Gompa. Nearly 40 miles south of Langtang is Nepal's capital, Kathmandu. This bustling city is a base for helicopter pilot Dougie Gray. DOUGIE: I was on a day off and for the first time ever I, I actually went to, to bed for a little snooze in the middle of the day. (rumbling). All that I was aware of was a rumbling noise, I don't know and I sort of became aware and then my earthquake alarm went off. So I jump out of bed, pulled on my shorts, grabbed a t-shirt, ran down the stairs. (screaming). As I went down through the, the hallway the big chandelier had crashed down to the floor already. There was broken glass everywhere and I ran straight outside, pushed my shoulders up against the wall and turned and looked at the building and saw it wobbling and that just scared me. NARRATOR: An earthquake has struck 51 miles north west of Kathmandu measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale. Its shock waves quickly reach Everest Base Camp. PAUL: Wow, oh wow, that's big... The sound and it's the sound of this movement, but your body is not able to process the movement bit of it yet. Wow. So we looked up into the ice fall because that where you think the dangers gonna come from and all the time this, this incredible movement going on under our feet. NARRATOR: Up at Camp One, Jim Davidson feels the shock waves too. JIM: And as I reached for the tent door I missed the zipper. I missed by about a foot and then all of a sudden the tent just lifted into the air about one foot, hovered for about two seconds and then dropped vertically back down. That's when the first waves of the earthquake were rippling through the glacier. We're getting knocked down off our knees cause the whole tent was rising up and down, just like being on a life raft on the ocean as the ocean swells, underneath the tent. Here comes another one. Can't tell. The noise was getting louder and louder and visibility dropped from 100 yards to about 5 yards and with all of that coming together that's when we knew we were in the middle of something really huge. DAWA: Be nice. PAUL: (bleep) everything is shaking. NARRATOR: There are 1,000 people on the mountain, all are now in danger. NARRATOR: High above the earthquake has dislodged huge amounts of snow and ice which is now bearing down on Base Camp. PAUL: In seconds then we turn around and saw this wall of ice. We didn't know what it was gonna do. Quick. Whoa, whoa, whoa! (bleep), (bleep), (bleep). Whoa, whoa, whoa, inside! Get down, get down! We ran inside the tent and we got under the table and we didn't have a whole lot of great options. Oh, wow! Oh wow! That's huge. That's huge. DAWA: Everybody was terrified and my part was like to hide under the table is the last option to survive. PAUL: Oh, wow! We wanted to get underneath something or around something structural that could take some of the impact. You're just thinking about "Is And does it matter anymore?" For God's sake, what, what, what? NARRATOR: As Everest experiences the first violent moments of an earthquake so does the Langtang Valley to its west, the Village of Kyanjim Gompa is shaking. You couldn't get your equilibrium. At some point we realized that Bridgitta, our climbing partner, wasn't with us. Bridg? MAN: Bridg? KAT: So we started yelling for her you know "Bridgitta, Bridgitta come out, come out." Bridgitta back in one. Bridgitta! Are you okay? MAN: Are you okay? Come out. KAT: Come out! Come out! I just ran in to try to find her. MAN: Come out! KAT: She was up on the second floor and she was crouched underneath a doorway. It was just seconds. I felt immediate relief because I thought it was over, everything's fine now. And then Kevin looked up and said "look, look, look!" KEVIN: Look, look, look, look! KAT: And we looked up and we saw... it just looked like a, what is that? It's this giant plume of you know rock, ice and snow. So you know we did what you do in that circumstance which is you run for your life. Then I felt the first impact of the avalanche and I knew that there was no way I was gonna stay on my feet because it was so powerful. NARRATOR: Lhakpa's neighbor, Karchom, her daughter and two year old son, Lhandrup are also caught up in the avalanche. NARRATOR: Karchom leaves her house to ask Lhakpa for help. NARRATOR: Everest Base Camp has also been hit by a massive avalanche. PAUL: I've never seen anything come at us like that before. Oh, my God! NARRATOR: Outside is a scene of total devastation. DAWA: Are we okay Danny? PAUL: Yeah, I'm okay, I'm fine. DAWA: Are you okay? PAUL: Yeah, I'm okay. DAWA: That's big, so many people in Camp One today. PAUL: I know. DAWA: So many people in Camp One. PAUL: I know (bleep) let's hope they're okay. What the hell has just happened? Oh, my God. Oh, wow! Right. DAWA: I went outside and I see there was terrific scene like I never saw before. It was like a war zone. PAUL: We heard the radios going and we heard people asking for help in the middle of the camp and so we started towards the middle of the camp, a few of us and as you're walking you start to see some, some equipment scattered. And then you're looking at camps that are no longer camps, they're just torn shreds of tents. So you're aware that the whole middle of Base Camp was this disaster area. It really is something else. Yeah, it's, it's just like a plane crash or something. It's hard to imagine what's just happened here in the last few hours. NARRATOR: In the Langtang Valley in the village of Kyanjim Gompa it becomes clear that the avalanche there has also brought terrible devastation. KAT: It stopped and it got quiet. The whole village that we were in was half gone. All these buildings they didn't have any roofs left on them, half of them were just blown away. For all we knew it was just localized to where we were or close to us. NARRATOR: But gradually they began to hear reports from further down the valley. KAT: By this time people had started coming up, a few survivors had started coming up from Langtang and what they said was "Langtang is gone". NARRATOR: In the Langtang Valley the earthquake and avalanche have left Lhakpa Jangba's bakery and home in ruins. Although his immediate concern is for his family further down the valley in Langtang Village. NARRATOR: Nothing can prepare Lhakpa for what he sees next. NARRATOR: Langtang, a settlement of more than 100 buildings is completely buried. One of the first from outside the valley to see the impact of the avalanche is helicopter pilot, Dougie Gray. DOUGIE: Well where the village was, was just solid floor of mud from one side of the valley straight across down to the bottom. It completely filled in the bottom of the valley and you could see where all the dust had blown up the other side. And any buildings that hadn't been taken out with the landslide, everything was just devastation. Blew down trees for kilometers down the valley. Impossible to visualize in your mind other than what you would see after a nuclear explosion and if I hadn't seen I with my own eyes I would've said "you're telling lies it's rubbish, that's impossible". NARRATOR: One of the first scientists on the scene in Langtang Valley is geologist Ranjan Kumar Dahal. Quickly it becomes clear to him from the vast amounts of debris that has buried Langtang Village that this is no ordinary avalanche. NARRATOR: The debris that hits Langtang still covers the valley floor. NARRATOR: Analyzing the rocks, Doctor Dahal discovers they originated high up the mountain plummeting 10,000 feet down onto Langtang. NARRATOR: What happens at Langtang Village makes it an important case study for avalanche expert, Dr. Perry Bartelt in Davos, Switzerland. PERRY: I think what, what was unusual was the sheer size of the Langtang event. It started with five million tons of material and grew another ten million tons to become a 15 million ton avalanche and that is extremely, extremely large. It's very, very surprising and very unusual for us to work with these very, very large mass movements. NARRATOR: Using satellite imagery Perry can work out the path of this monster avalanche. PERRY: Here you see the four release zones that we identified. From this release zone the avalanche starts. It entrains a considerable amount of mass and here, this red, represents the speed of the avalanche. The avalanche in this particular release zone is traveling at a speed of over 100 meters per second. NARRATOR: When the earthquake strikes, falling blocks of ice nearly 10,000 feet above Langtang trigger a vast avalanche of ice, snow and other debris. As it grows in size and speed it gains enough momentum to travel across a flatter zone towards a sheer cliff that towers over Langtang. There it plunges with second acceleration directly onto the village. PERRY: And so what we saw was, was that the entrainment allowed the avalanche to traverse a very flat slope and then reach this steep region, become accelerated once again and then hit the village of Langtang. NARRATOR: The impact is equivalent to more than seven and a half kilo-tons of TNT explosive, nearly half the size of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. In the desolate landscape Lhakpa tries to find his family's home. NARRATOR: Lhakpa's mother and eight other members of his family are dead. The terrible cost of this disaster is now becoming apparent. NARRATOR: At Everest Base Camp, the earthquake and resulting avalanche has left devastation in its wake. PAUL: As you're walking through it's just, just the remains of, of camps on either side of you. There's nothing. Where we had seen big expedition teams, there was nothing but you know scarred remains of all of their equipment. PAUL: You can see some of the carnage here. We're just right of middle, the worst damage is just right behind us here. But this is some of it. NARRATOR: As survivors search for friends and teammates the scale of the disaster becomes apparent. PAUL: It's a scene of pretty surreal devastation. NARRATOR: 17 are found dead while many others are seriously injured and fighting for their lives. The Everest avalanche originates between two peaks high above Base Camp. Pumori and Lingtran. JIM: In this particular case when the mountain shook it let loose ice and probably rock as well and that big wave of debris came flying down 3,000, 4,000 vertical feet. NARRATOR: This lethal rush of material kills not only by suffocation but trauma wounds inflicted by a hidden killer that comes with an avalanche. JIM: There's just so much force coming down with the ice and rock that that force gets transferred into wind when all the debris of the first avalanche stops, it puts all that inertia, all that momentum into the air. PERRY: This airborne momentum contained in the dust particles and the dust cloud and then in the air that's it's moving is detached from the ground and because it's detached from the ground it experiences less friction and therefore it can take a trajectory independent of the terrain. JIM: It creates this huge wind blast and that air blast went right up over a ridge behind camp and blasted through camp carrying ice and powder and dirt and rocks and that like was canon fire that blasted through the middle third of camp. PAUL: The shock wave and the energy caused all of that snow along with everything else around it to start heading towards Base Camp at high speed and along the way it picked up different things it had found. And Base Camp is full of kitchen equipment and it's full of tents and it's full, everything that makes all of this even worse because all of those things became missiles. NARRATOR: The avalanche that hit Langtang Village also brings with it an air blast. But here it's even more powerful. PERRY: Now the air blast speed that hit Langtang was probably on the order of about 100 to 120 kilometers an hour. It was going at the speed that you would travel on a highway. What this meant was, was that the pressures that the buildings experienced in, in Langtang by the air blast was enough to destroy and knock over many of these buildings. NARRATOR: The devastating air blast leaves a trail of total destruction within a radius of two miles of the village. Hundreds are killed. Just outside his blast zone up the valley in Kyanjin Gompa, Kat Heldman, does her best to care for the injured. KAT: I remember like the wailing... and it was just like the sound of people wailing. We were just trying to rescue people. We were digging them out. There was one elderly Nepalese lady and her head just kept bleeding and bleeding and bleeding and like we were, we kept wrapping, you know we wrapped her head and I, I, I stayed there with them while they started bringing people and I just, I just sang 'Amazing Grace' to them because I didn't know what else to do. And then gave them tea, you know I remember I was just, this is kinda of gross but I was putting tea in my mouth and like dripping it into their mouths because like this lady like she couldn't move, you know. I didn't know how else to get it into her mouth and they needed to be in hospital. And wishing that, that was the case but that wasn't the case so just comforting them you know so they wouldn't, mostly cause I didn't, cause I didn't know if they were dying. Like I didn't want them to be alone. NARRATOR: The young son of Lhakpa's neighbor is one of those most in need of urgent treatment. KAT: This baby had its pelvis and legs were crushed and so Bridgitta, she's a travel nurse and she wrapped the baby's legs with some remnants of, of shirts that we ripped up and made sure that the legs were elevated. NARRATOR: In Langtang Valley the day ends with the seriously wounded in desperate need of evacuation but there is no sign of help. And on Everest poor visibility means that rescue is impossible. All are stranded. NARRATOR: The day after the earthquake and avalanche the clouds over Everest lift. PAUL: So the helicopters were in from 6:30 almost in the morning starting to ferry people back to Kathmandu. First the seriously injured to get them back to hospital. There were 60 people with some pretty bad injuries. So another day of having to manage those would've been very uncomfortable for those people, it might have increased the fatalities. NARRATOR: Uninjured, Paul is able to leave Base Camp on foot. But above at Camp One, Jim Davidson is still in danger. The earthquake has rendered the ice fall below unstable. So climbing down to Base Camp is not an option. The only way out is by helicopter, dangerous at this high altitude with this thin air. On the second day after the earthquake Jim gets his chance. JIM: They told us to be ready to go when the sun first comes up because it's the coldest part of the day, the air is most dense and that gives the helicopters a little bit more of a bite in the thin, thin air. And we were very lucky that the weather was clear and the helicopters started arriving around 6 AM. Normally these helicopters can carry six people down at sea level but up here in the thin air they can only carry three people and so we just piled in the helicopters two by two and to save weight they took out the seats and the seat belts. So you would just crawl in the helicopter and sit on the floor and go for the wildest ride in your life cause that helicopter could barely lift off at 19,800 feet at its maximum lifting capacity. The air is less than half the thickness that it is at sea level so it means the helicopter has less than half of its normal lift. And as a result to get that last little bit of performance the pilots will skim close to the ground to try and get the lift as the air from the blades hits the ground and bounces back up, they call it ground effect, and that gives the helicopter just a little bit more lift. But what that means is the helicopters fly 50 to 70 feet across the ground the whole way and descended 2,000 vertical feet in just about a minute, flying back down Base Camp. survivors are less fortunate. Those in the village of Kyanjim Gompa they continue to wait for help to arrive from the skies. KAT: You image that you know when a disaster occurs that the military is going to arrive to, to rescue you. We had no idea that the whole country had you know suffered. NARRATOR: The Nepalese Government have very few helicopters available for evacuations during this nationwide emergency so precious resources are thinly spread. KAT: I feel like the days that followed for me a lot of it was a blur. We just kept checking on people, going back to help them as best we could. I just kept thinking, "God, these people, they need to be in hospitals. Like we need a hospital. We need help." NARRATOR: When a helicopter finally does arrive it's a private hire, reserved for Western tourists. This helivac causes confusion and misunderstanding. KAT: I just couldn't understand why people that appeared perfectly fine were getting on a helicopter when we had this severely injured baby. KAT: A whole group of people and it was both Westerners and Nepalese that ran to the helicopter and would not let it take off. NARRATOR: After they are told of the critical state of the wounded, the tourists agree to give up their seats. KAT: When that baby got on the helicopter it was like, a sigh of relief. You know just a big sigh of relief. NARRATOR: The human cost of the earthquake of the 25th of April, 2015 is terrible. At least 20 people are killed on Everest. It's thought 350 Nepalese and tourists lose their lives in Langtang Village. In all the death toll in Nepal is almost 9,000. More than 600,000 buildings are either destroyed or badly damaged. 2.8 million people are displaced. The earthquake is so powerful that it moves the whole of Nepal more than two meters to the south. Given its geography Nepal will experience more of these nation shifting earthquakes in the future and the avalanches that come with them may be bigger and deadlier. PERRY: One of the things that we're finding now and this is, this has a lot to with, with climate change is if you change the temperature of your sub-straight just by a little bit you can change the whole dynamics of the avalanche. And this is something to be very, very concerned about in the future. These very large mass events are becoming more common. They're, they're becoming more and more dangerous. NARRATOR: Lhakpa Jangba is still in touch with those he helped to rescue in the Langtang Valley, including the now 6-year old Lhandrup living with his family in Kathmandu. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: The trauma of her experience in Langtang has stayed with Kat Heldman long after returning home. KAT: I felt deep grief, deep sorrow for all the people that had died. I also felt lucky to have been given another day on the planet. NARRATOR: This year, for the first time, she feels strong enough to return to mark the anniversary of the earthquake. Memories of the tragedy remain with Paul Devaney too. But in 2020 he plans to go back and complete his goal to scale Everest. Jim Davidson did go back in 2017 and he made it to the summit. Much to the concern of his parents, Dawa Sherpa wants to climb the mountain again. DAWA: Climbing is in my blood but I can't be happy without climbing again. For my parents like to work in an office is safe. My mom was saying "I survived 2014, I survived 2015 and the third time you will definitely die". Maybe I can convince my parents one day and I could go to the mountains again to stand on the top of Mount Everest for the fifth time. NARRATOR: In Langtang four years on they're still working hard to bring the valley back to life. Lhakpa Jangba has rebuilt his bakery but the monastery where he attends the ghewa before the earthquake is still in ruins. Nepalese like Lhakpa speak of the earthquake in spiritual terms, bad karma, a loss of tradition, a greed that comes with tourism, a sickness in the soul. LHAKPA: We have many spiritual powers around us. We always worship them. We have been following more old traditional way of life. But after the tourism started the life is totally changed, the traditional way of worship has been slowly disappearing. And when this gods are angry something big gonna happen. Because when, when you don't worship them properly then they get angry because it's a give and take. People only stop taking but never give back. That's the reason why these Gods are angry and this big disaster happens. NICK: It happened so quickly. It was like a bomb went off. NARRATOR: In 2017, central Portugal is hit by a devastating wildfire. DAVE: Day had turned to night within seconds. (crying). JACKIE: We just thought, "Well, we need to leave. We need to get out." MARIA: It was pure panic. All you could see was people screaming. SÉRGIO: I honestly thought I would die there. NARRATOR: It's the worst wildfire in Portugal's history. Its aftermath is devastating. It's a tragedy that leaves an entire nation stunned. Now, eye witness accounts, survivors footage and expert scientific combine to create an unprecedented disaster. In the heart central Portugal is the region of Pedrógão Grande. It's a rural area of densely forested rolling hills, dotted with small picturesque towns and villages. DAVE: I moved to the village with my wife Jackie about ten years ago. Came here from the UK. Just really to find a better way of life, I suppose. And the locals have made us very welcome here. They've accepted us and we've made a good little life here. It's very peaceful and calm. A tranquil little place, yeah. MARIA: I live with my husband, my parents and my son. In the village we all know each other, we are good friends. We get on with each other and help each other out. We all live in harmony with one another. SÉRGIO: I wasn't born here, but have been in Pedrógão for 40 years. It was, and still is, beautiful. Everyone knows each other. People help each other, help their neighbors. Should a neighbor need anything we are always there. NARRATOR: In the summer months, Pedrógão Grande can be extremely hot, with temperatures often reaching 85 degrees Fahrenheit. But 2017 is a record breaker. MARIA: 2017 was a very, very hot summer. We had already been warned it would be very hot, but we never thought the temperature would go that high. NARRATOR: By June, there's been no rain for three weeks, and temperatures hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit. ALEX: Fire is quite common in Portugal. In a normal fire season, yes you do have fires, you do have damage, but the fire services can cope with it. NARRATOR: But 2017 is far from ordinary. Before the prolonged drought, Pedrógão Grande received abundant rainfall, creating the perfect conditions for a major fire season. NICK: You had that period of time where you had more precipitation, more rainfall, you had a lot of fuels grow, and then that gives you that much more fuel to burn. And that's one of the perfect recipes you can get for fires. Any sort of fire that was gonna ignite during this time frame had the potential to be problematic. ALEX: In 2017, the weather was extreme. Perfect fire weather. The landscape was bone dry and covered in thick forest. So all that was needed for a disaster fire to happen was one spark. NARRATOR: On June 17th, at 2:30 PM, a small fire is reported in a densely forested river valley, 3 miles from the town Fire chief, Sergio Lourenço, immediately responds. SÉRGIO: That day, I was home. I had just finished my lunch when I heard the siren. I knew that when the siren goes off that there's a fire and they are calling the firemen in. I got into my uniform and I took the command car, and I went as fast as I could towards the fire. I thought it would be a bit more of a difficult fire, due to the heat we had that day. It was already really hot. NARRATOR: In the time it takes Sergio to arrive at the fire, it's developed and spreading fast. SÉRGIO: This area here was all covered in flames. The fire covered everything. There was a lot of heat and lots of smoke. Thick smoke. NARRATOR: Sergio immediately marshals the approaching fire trucks to try and get them ahead of the growing blaze. SÉRGIO: My priority is always to find routes and roads to put combat cars in front of the fire. (sirens). NARRATOR: Four miles away, Dave and his wife Jackie are at home in Figueira. DAVE: I think we noticed the fire probably about mid-afternoon. We could see it from the balcony. NARRATOR: Maria Do Céu is also at home in the nearby village of Nodeirinho. MARIA: I was at home, then I went outside and saw smoke towards Pedrógão. So I went back in the house and told my husband. NARRATOR: By 3 PM, the fire is spreading rapidly south from the ignition site. The speed of the fire's expansion is partly down to the type of trees planted here, used extensively by Portugal's paper industry. ALEX: We're a eucalyptus forest here. You see these beautiful quality trees, they're producing good fiber for pulp and paper. Eucalyptus is native to Australia and was exported from there to many parts of the world, including Portugal. Eucalyptus has some very positive traits in terms of forestry. It is a very fast growing species. And after the first rotation it resprouts and you get a second and a third rotation with no replanting. NARRATOR: But there is one major drawback to eucalyptus. ALEX: They're also producing a lot of litter on the ground here. Very burnable, flammable litter. The price you pay for this beautiful, easy to farm tree is you increase your fire hazard because you produce that type of litter that is waiting for a fire to happen. It also produces this kind of bark that is peeling off. If this catches fire, the wind takes it away and this makes it also possible for a surface fire to climb up into the canopy and it will ignite fire somewhere else. NARRATOR: This ability for eucalyptus embers to travel on the wind and start further fires is a phenomenon known as spotting. At the University of Coimbra FireLab in central Portugal, Professor Domingos Viegas studies fire in a controlled environment to analyze its behavior. (shout). DOMINGOS: The point of this experiment is to look at the spotting produced by eucalyptus trees. We want to see what are the conditions in which the eucalyptus tree burn, and how it spreads spots at different distance, varying the velocity of the wind. ALEX: Eucalyptus is especially prone to spotting, compared to other tree species. With spot fires you get additional multiple ignitions ahead of your main fire, which means you're dealing with several fires in the same landscape. NARRATOR: Professor Viegas's experiments have discovered that eucalyptus is capable of starting new fires over vast distances. DOMINGOS: In Portugal we have increased the spotting from eucalyptus bark, at 10-11 kilometers. NARRATOR: Carried on the wind and spreading fast, the Pedrógão Grande fire grows increasingly out of control. NARRATOR: By 3:45 PM, firefighters from across the Pedrógão Grande region battle to control the fire which now covers 61 acres. To make matters worse, a completely new fire is reported over 7 miles away from the first fire. Volunteer firefighter Fernando Tomé is called to his station. He and his crew of four race to the site of the new fire. FERNANDO: When we got to the fire zone, we were all surprised. I was surprised. We said, "This is chaos." NARRATOR: Just like the main fire, it's spreading fast. The eucalyptus forests are densely planted and largely unmanaged. With very few firebreaks and woodland that grows right up to roads and houses, there is nothing to stand in the fire's way. As the main fire continues its relentless march south, it burns so fiercely it begins to create its own weather system. A thick, vertical column of smoke and ash has formed above the fire. Within it, hot hair loaded with moisture from the vegetation rises rapidly to create a fire-formed cloud known as a pyrocumulus. The hot, rising plume draws in fresh oxygen-rich air from around the fire, creating strong winds at ground level that fan the flames even further. NICK: You get wind and air rushing towards the center of the fire. It starts burning hotter, which means more air needs to come into it. That process keeps repeating. Essentially it becomes this kinda self-sustaining entity. NARRATOR: As the pyrocumulus cloud continues to grow, there's another even more dangerous situation developing. To the southeast, dry thunderstorms are forming and heading straight for the fire. NICK: So, dry thunderstorms are essentially a thunderstorm, but much of the precipitation will evaporate before it reaches the ground. I mean if you're dreaming up worse case scenario, this would pretty much be it. (thunder). And when dry thunderstorms are nearby, not only can start new fires from the cloud-to-ground lightning, but then you can get strong winds emanating from these thunderstorms. NARRATOR: Until now, the prevailing wind has spread the fire directly southwards, ensuring the fierce and rapidly moving fire front remains narrow. But as the thunderstorm arrives, its violent gusts quickly cause the wind direction to change by 90 degrees. In an instant, what used to be the long, slow burning western flank of the fire, becomes a new vast fire front that quickly begins spreading west. NICK: It just created this almost unbelievable scenario for fire spread. Not only do you have a much quicker spreading fire, but you also have a wider flaming front that is gonna encounter, you know, more fuel and endanger more people and more residences. NARRATOR: For those trying to fight the fire, this sudden shift is a potential killer. NICK: Many firefighters' common tactics is you can work around the flanks to try to kinda hem in the fire. And so, if you're on the flanks and then the flank all of sudden becomes the head fire, that's a very dangerous situation. NARRATOR: Fire Chief Sergio Lourenço is among those who are close to the fire's new western front. SÉRGIO: The fire started to get worse. The smoke blocked the sun out so much. It was dark as night. It started spreading. So it was growing larger and larger. The speed was such that we couldn't keep up with it. NARRATOR: By 6:30 PM, the vast fire front is spreading rapidly westwards, and approaching Maria's village, fast. MARIA: When I came outside, you couldn't see a thing. It was all dark, there was no sun. The wind was so strong it was hard to stand up, it made us fall over. It was all dark, pitch black, you couldn't see anything. It was, I can't explain. It was hell. NARRATOR: As the fire reaches the outskirts of Maria's village, she realizes she has to make a life or death decision: to stay or try to escape in her car. But she's left it too late. MARIA: I couldn't drive away, because the flames were already crossing the road. Then I remembered the water tank and thought, "Let's get to the water." We really thought we would all die. So I got my mother, and we went into the water. NARRATOR: A mile away, Dave realizes that the fire is far more serious than he first thought. DAVE: Basically the whole horizon was just filled with a wall of smoke as far as the eye could see. And I'm talking about, pah, maybe 20 kilometers. And you could hear like a roar, as if it was the roar of the ocean. This was a big fire Jackie and I went back down into the courtyard. In that short space of time, things had worsened unbelievably. Day had turned to We ran for the hose and we weren't achieving much. Some of the olive trees had taken alight, and the eucalyptus at the bottom was catching alight as well. NARRATOR: As the blaze rapidly approaches the house, Dave and his wife Jackie are forced to make the same life or death decision: to stay or try to escape. DAVE: We decided to get the vehicles and leave the property. I said to Jackie, "Follow me." Jackie was behind me with the dogs in the small van. The conditions were worsening by the second. There was fire everywhere, both sides of the road. The smoke was just unbelievable and you could feel the intensity of the heat. I should think some of the flames would have been 20 30 foot tall. The trees here all, all ablaze, everything, everything alight. You could even feel the heat, the heat in the vehicle. NARRATOR: Dave doesn't realize it but he and Jackie are heading straight into the main fire front. NARRATOR: By 7:30 PM, the Pedrógão Grande fire has devoured more than 6,500 acres, and spotting has spawned multiple smaller fires. Now these fire merge to create one unbroken fire front. NICK: Fires interact with each or merge. It can increase the intensity of the fires and can increase its rate of spread, and that's a very dangerous situation. NARRATOR: As the fires merge and intensify, temperatures reach as much as 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit. And volatile winds reach speeds of 80 miles per hour. REPORTER: Soaring temperatures in Portugal are threatening efforts to bring a raging forest fire under control, according to the country's officials. NARRATOR: As Portugal's monster wildfire begins to make headlines around the world, the news that her hometown of Figueiró dos Vinhos is in danger, reaches Nádia Piazza. NÁDIA: When I heard about the fire I was working in Ireland. (speaking Portuguese). NÁDIA: I started to find out about it through social media, getting updates from people about a large fire in the Pedrógão Grande area. At that moment, I had a very bad feeling. NARRATOR: Nadia tries to call her four-year-old son in Pedrógão Grande, who is with his dad, her ex-husband. But the fire has destroyed telephone masts across the region. NÁDIA: I couldn't reach his father, or anyone. That got me panicking. NARRATOR: In the heart of the inferno, Fire Chief Sergio Lourenço navigates blazing back roads as he continues to coordinate fire crews. Suddenly, he sees a man stumbling out of the smoke. SÉRGIO: His hands and his face, you could see they were all burnt. That's what I saw first. What immediately jumped out at me were his hands. His hands were all covered in blood and totally burnt. His face too. We couldn't even make out his ears when he came out of the fire. My concern was to get him out of here from where the fire was so I could try to help him. NARRATOR: Sergio manages to escape the fire and get the man to safety where he is treated for his burns. Dave, and his wife Jackie who's following close behind, are unwittingly driving towards the fire. With 20 foot flames and intense heat on both sides of the road, Dave's vehicle starts to falter. DAVE: The van started to splutter, and all to the right of me here the, the smoke and the flames were just coming over the top of the vehicle. 20 or 30 yards up the road after that, the van just cut out. And I thought, "This isn't good, I've got to do something." And that's when I decided I had to get out of the vehicle. My first reaction was to call Jackie, thinking she was behind me. To my horror, she wasn't behind me. I couldn't believe that Jackie wasn't there. We left in such a panic. I didn't even have a mobile phone on me. I just hoped and prayed that she had the sense to turn round and go back to the house. I was just hoping and praying that that's what she'd done. NARRATOR: As the village of Nodeirinho is engulfed in flames, Maria and her elderly parents are joined in a small water tank by other villagers. They too are desperate to escape the ferocious heat and flames. MARIA: There were probably 11, 12 people inside the tank. The air was very heavy, and we still felt the heat because the wind was so strong that was pushing the flames from outside into the tank. We were throwing water over ourselves because the temperature was so unbearably hot it burned. We could feel the heat on our bodies even though we were in the water. Everyone was crying and screaming. It was pure panic. NARRATOR: Then, from the water tank, Maria sees another local family trying to escape by car. MARIA: Gina drove past us and I screamed and said, "Gina, stop the car and come into the water." She didn't hear me and kept driving. There was so much smoke and fire she couldn't see, and veered off to the side of the road. NARRATOR: Gina and her son escape the car, but her mother and four-year-old daughter are trapped in the back seat. MARIA: She got out of the car, then when she went to open the rear door where her four-year-old daughter was, she couldn't open it because the rubber didn't... it seemed like it was melting. She just couldn't open the door. NARRATOR: Unable to free them, Gina and her son rush to the water tank. MARIA: When she got here she screamed and said, "Help me! Look, my mother and daughter are trapped. Let's get them out." But it was impossible for us to reach them because of the fire, there was no way we could get through it. She wouldn't stop screaming for us to get her daughter. And I said, "Gina, we can't. Try to stay calm." She was very burnt. She couldn't take it. She screamed a lot. It was horrible. Hell. NARRATOR: Just before 8 PM, Maria's village is completely surrounded by fire, and the blaze continues to spread quickly westwards. For those who've chosen to try to out run the fire, there is one major escape route left: the main N236 road. Wide, with areas either side of it free from trees, it should be a relatively safe way out. But as firefighter Fernando Tomé races along it, he finds the landscape is completely ablaze. FERNANDO: This is exactly the route we were on. When we got here we could see that ahead of us everything was consumed by fire, coming towards us at such a high speed. We suddenly realized the enormity of the situation. NARRATOR: What Fernando doesn't know is that the pyrocumulus cloud that's been constantly growing in size and strength is closing in on this major escape route. And it's morphing into something even more destructive. NICK: Pyrocumulus cloud keeps intensifying and keeps, you know, developing vertically. Then it kinda switches gears into what we call a pyrocumulonimbus cloud. That's essentially a fire generated thunderstorm over a fire. fast fire-breathing pyrocumulonimbus cloud grows in height and mass, it draws in more and more hot air to sustain it. By 7:50 PM, it reaches 40,000 feet into the stratosphere. This is a critical turning point. At that altitude the cloud begins to cool and the hot air isn't enough to keep it aloft. Running low on power the cloud begins to collapse under its own weight, plummeting towards earth in a phenomenon known as a downburst. And right beneath it are those trying to escape on the N236. NICK: It was like a bomb went off. Like a fireball was in the sky when it collapsed. NARRATOR: The downburst creates wind speeds in excess of 70 miles per hour. Acting like a vast set of bellows it supercharges the fire. NICK: It happened so quickly there's no escaping it. It would've been on them in an instant. It's pretty much not survivable when you have those sort of conditions. NARRATOR: 30 people die on this 300 yard stretch of road. NARRATOR: By 8 PM, the supercharged inferno created by the collapsing fire cloud accelerates the fire spread even further. NARRATOR: Fernando and his crew drove through the area of the downburst just moments before it happened. But as they race along the N236, they're engulfed by fire and blinded by thick smoke. FERNANDO: This is precisely where the accident took place. There was another car coming towards us at high speed. We had time to shout "We're going to hit it!" Then we did hit it. The impact was like something, something out of this world. The car that crashed into us was thrown here. Our truck was in the other lane. The fire immediately spread all around us. There was no time for anything. I went to check to see if there was anything we could do for the people inside the car. But there was no way. They were unconscious. We couldn't do anything for them. There was no way to save anyone from that accident. The heat was just so hot because the fire was on both sides and we were in the middle of it. It was too hot to stay here, so we had to abandon the car. We run in that direction, towards the road crossing ahead. his crew run towards the only cover they can find. FERNANDO: The only protection we had were the traffic signs. We were here for a while, crouching behind the signs like this. It was all the protection we had. The fire was all around us so we didn't have anywhere else to hide. I had a cap but I lost it in the wind and my hair started burning with the heat. I honestly thought I would die there. NARRATOR: Fernando and his crew endure the intense heat for 45 minutes. They're eventually rescued by an ambulance crew and rushed straight to hospital. FERNANDO: I burnt my hands. I burnt my whole face, my head, the back of my legs, calves. I also burnt 30% of my airways. NARRATOR: When the sun comes up the following day the scale of the fire's destruction is revealed for the first time. As the fire dies down around the village of Nodeirinho, Dave leaves a house where he took refuge overnight, and goes in search of his wife Jackie. DAVE: Waited 'til first light and decided to cycle to our friends, Terry and Maria, who live at a local village only five minutes away. I was just hoping and praying that I didn't see the wreckage of Jackie's vehicle. That's, that's, that's just what I didn't wanna see. There was still a lot of smoke about. The heat coming off the banks was, was still intense. Really hot. Trees were burning. And I just started to come round the corner on the bike and I had to stop because I didn't really believe what I was seeing. There was a, a young girl laid dead in the road. Um... She'd obviously came from the opposite direction. Her vehicle had hit a tree. You could see where the door had opened. She'd obviously tried to run. But she lay in the road in front of me. Not knowing where Jackie was and just seeing the young girl, that was a terrible feeling, yeah. NARRATOR: Desperate to find his wife, and fearing the worst, Dave continues his search for Jackie. NARRATOR: Nádia Piazza hurries back to Portugal and heads straight to her ex-husband's house, desperate for news of her son Louis. NÁDIA: We drove to the family home where my family should have been with my son. His dad, his grandma and many other people. When I got to the house I panicked, because I saw a house totally in the dark with the gates open as if it had been abandoned. I looked everywhere. No one could tell me anything. NÁDIA: I went to all the shelters with a list of names in my hand. I was crying. I knew they wouldn't be there. I got a call from the police saying their car had been caught in the fire. NARRATOR: Louis, his father and seven other members of his family, all died on the N236 during the catastrophic downburst. Still frantically searching for his wife Jackie, Dave makes it to his friends' house. DAVE: I saw that Terry and Maria's vehicle was there, which was good. They answered the door straight away. I said, "I can't find Jackie. I need some help." NARRATOR: They head straight to the nearby town where many of the locals have taken refuge for the night. DAVE: He kept trying to reassure me that she's gonna be OK. A terrible feeling. We drove into Figueira, and there Jackie stood in front us. We just embraced each other, and my friend Terry said it was something which movies are made of. JACKIE: Dave turned up with Terry in the car, and I saw him and he climbed out the car. DAVE: Just to see her alive was, yeah it was unbelievable. JACKIE: I said I'd never fall out with him again. But I have. But, yeah. And I just said, "Where have you been?" But was just so thankful he was alive. DAVE: After a good few hugs and kisses and realizing that we were both still alive, and I thought we were both very, very lucky. NARRATOR: The Pedrógão fire rages for another three days. Water bombing planes and helicopters arrive from Spain, France and Italy to help. It takes 2,000 firefighters and the help of hundreds of military personnel to finally extinguish it. In total, the fire destroys 115 square miles. More than 200 people are injured, and 67 lose their lives. Portugal's media dubbed the N236 'The Road of Death'. Some experts warn that this is unlikely to the last time Portugal will experience a disaster on this scale. ALEX: I'm pretty sure that a disaster fire like this can happen again. It doesn't matter which climate change scenario you accept, all of them are predicting more severe fire weather in the future. And knowing that we have these large areas of land covered in dense forest, makes sure we will have disaster fires in the future like this. NARRATOR: Fernando's burns were so severe, doctors placed him in a coma for two months to allow his lungs to heal. FERNANDO: The scars will stay with me for life. I will have to live with that forever. What worries me most is the problem with my lungs. MARIA: It scarred our lives forever. It's so difficult because every day we pass the places where we lost our friends. Even if we wanted to forget we couldn't. We remember it every day. And it worries us that it could happen again. The same thing. This is what worries me the most. VICTORIA: It was just one afternoon in April. They didn't wake up that day thinking this would be their last. (sobs). JAMES (over phone): This would be a day where there's going to be so many tornado warnings. MATT: It's something like I'd never seen before. LYNN: We watched this monster form before our very eyes. MATT: These were killer tornadoes on the ground. LYNN: And I thought, "It's coming for us. It's coming for us." JAMES: Stay sheltered. Get underground. These things were monstrous, super cell storms. PAUL: He was holding her hand and she just went up and away from me. CHRIS: It was gonna be one of those days where if people didn't take cover, then they were gonna die. LYNN: It's coming over campus buildings. NARRATOR: In April, 2011, over just four days, more than 360 tornadoes ravaged the southern United States. Look at the debris. Look at the debris and all you can do is pray for those people. NARRATOR: It's the deadliest tornado outbreak for 75 years. WOMAN: Oh my god! NATE: Ma'am, are people okay? WOMAN: I don't know! I can't... NARRATOR: 321 people are killed and thousands are made homeless. survivor's footage and expert scientific analysis reveal the terrible events of the super tornado outbreak. NARRATOR: Just over 50 miles north of Birmingham, Alabama, is the small town of Cullman and its population of 15,000. KITTY: I'm Kitty Spears, the owner of the Busy Bee Cafe. I have been in business for myself here since 1989. The Busy Bee Cafe is run by family. All my family members work here. We're Cullman's oldest restaurant and we were the backbone of this town. NARRATOR: 100 miles south of Cullman is Tuscaloosa. Home to more than 38,000 students from the University of Alabama. VICTORIA: My name's Tori Sheehan, in 2011 I was a student at the University of Alabama and I was also an intern at WVUA, the local station in Tuscaloosa. So, I lived in the eastern part of Tuscaloosa in Alberta. It was a two story apartment complex made up mostly of students, but there were also people who weren't students at the University living there. It was my own little place. I mean, it was like a shoebox basically, but it was mine and I loved it. JAMES: My name is James Spann. My title is Chief Meteorologist for WBMA TV in Birmingham. I'm an old timer, I've been here a long time. Growing up in rural south Alabama, the storms on a summer afternoon were unbelievably awesome. Well, for everybody else they were a nuisance, but for me they were fascinating. But we have two tornado ally's. One is the traditional tornado alley. This is the southern great plains. States like, Oklahoma and Kansas. But we have a secondary area in the south-east United States. Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, north Louisiana, north Georgia. And that has been dubbed as Dixie Alley. NARRATOR: And it's Dixie Alley with its denser populations and higher concentration of mobile homes that has the deadliest tornadoes each year. JAMES: We have a lot of our population away from cities that live in manufactured housing and simply by nature of the beast, air can get under them and go above them and they can go airborne. For those that live in them, they have to be thinking about this way, way, way before a tornado. NARRATOR: In early April, 2011, unusually warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico is moving north, while cold fronts head south-east from the Midwest and planes states. The two collide and are churned further by howling winds in the jet stream. It's a turbulent breeding ground for super cells. Some of the most dangerous storms on Earth. They're capable of spawning the most violent of tornadoes. (thunder) With the most powerful tornadoes being up to a mile wide with spiraling winds of up to 250 miles an hour; alarm bells are ringing in the deep south. CHRIS: We don't like to cry wolf, but in the days leading up to April 27th, we sort of seeing strong thunderstorms and they actually developed into super cell thunderstorms. Super cells are long lived and statistically, they're the type of storms that produce not just tornadoes, but typically, the bigger tornadoes. Those more violent tornadoes. NARRATOR: A super cell forms when conflicting winds cause horizontal spin in the lower atmosphere. Warm up-drafts then force it vertically to form a mesocyclone, the spinning heart of a super cell. It draws in more warm air, driving the rotation faster. Rapidly descending air at the rear of the storm can then drag the mesocyclone towards the ground. If it touches down, a tornado is born. JAMES: Once we got within about five days, it became obvious that April 27th could be a problematic type day. We didn't know where tornadoes would touch down, how many tornadoes we were gonna have. Exactly what state maybe, would take the brunt of this, but somebody in the deep south was gonna have a really bad day. JAMES (over TV): Severe weather a possibility by mid-week. Chance of super cell storms Wednesday afternoon. NARRATOR: In the early hours of Wednesday the 27th of April, the predicted storm system hits James Spann's home state of Alabama. JAMES: Walking in here, I knew I had to get my microphone strapped on and get ready to go on television immediately. It was just a sense of urgency and a sense of I hope we're not in over our heads. JAMES (over TV): These storms are very serious, so let's kind of re-set here. It's 5:40, a lot of you are just waking up now to the sirens going off. (sirens) VICTORIA: There were terrible thunderstorms that morning, even before the sun was up. And I remember just laying down and hearing, like right when you're about to wake up, but you're still not fully awake, and hearing the thunder. NARRATOR: During the morning hours, seven states are hit by a massive storm system. 92 tornadoes touched down, stretching from Louisiana all the way north to Ohio. KITTY: That morning, April 27th, we were extremely busy because there were storms earlier that morning in the town next to us and everybody was coming to Cullman because they had no power and everything. By 9:00 AM the weather system across Mississippi and Alabama completely transforms. Looks like we might see several hours of sunshine this morning and that in turn, could lead to some really rough weather later today. We saw the sun break out, thinking oh goodness, that's the last thing you want. And that's really gonna heat the air up and make the air buoyant and set the stage for some horrible storms later in the day. JAMES (over radio): This is the time where you go a safe place now, as low as you can go. Underground if you can get there, no mobile homes and no cars, so again... NARRATOR: Ignoring the warnings, storm chaser, Reed Timmer, decides to head in the direction of one of the super cell storms near the town of Philadelphia in Mississippi. REED: By afternoon, our target storm developed in the east of Jackson, Mississippi and right when that storm developed it assumed text book super cell characteristics and our plan was to find an open meadow that was directly in the path of that storm. And suddenly the forest opened up, I had a clear view to the south-west... When, bam! Oh my god! There's houses up there! REED: You guys, this is probably one of the strongest tornadoes we've ever seen. NARRATOR: As the 2011 tornado super outbreak begins to intensify, a massive twister has just touched down in Philadelphia, Mississippi. REED: Oh my god, look at that horizontal vortices on the left side. Horizontal vortices feeding into it. NARRATOR: Directly in its path is storm chaser, Reed Timmer. look at the left side. Look at the left side! It was approaching rapidly and we saw the massive wedge. We knew it was powerful at that point. A very large tornado, a very compact super cell structure as well. You could see the whole entire up-draft and the rain shaft next to it. A rapid upward motion on the left side. feeding into it and you knew that we were dealing with a different monster. Oh god, there are houses up there! Houses! I was freaking out trying to let them know that there was a dangerous tornado heading for their location. This is not good, guys. NARRATOR: As it races along the ground, the half a mile wide tornado suddenly becomes even more deadly as it mutates into a multiple vortex tornado made up of smaller vortices. REED: One of the touched down right near that power pole. It dug a trench out of the ground over two feet deep. Everything in its path was ripped out of the ground. No, no, no, no! MAN: Look at the wave. (inaudible). NARRATOR: Philadelphia's with rotational winds of up to 205 miles per hour is given the most powerful rating on the Enhanced Fujita scale. EF5. REED: Oh my god! NARRATOR: It's the first EF5 in the Dixie Alley tornado region for more than a decade. REED: Go that way! Keep your eye on it! NARRATOR: With tornadoes on average killing 80 people every year in the US, atmospheric scientists from the University of Wisconsin are leading the drive to reduce this death toll. LEIGH: We wanna be able to predict the tornado's occurrence ahead of time. We wanna be able to tell the public long before one of these tornadoes occurs that it's going to occur and where it's going to occur. In this simulation, we have a storm that produces a multiple vortex tornado. Boom, there's your tornado and it starts out as like, a needle thin narrow thing and maybe 100 meters across. Very strong winds right off the top, but you'll notice as time goes on, it gets wider. Eventually this thing gets wrapped in rain, but as it gets wide and you start to see embedded within this tornado are what you might think of as mini tornadoes. They're called suction vortices. And the multiple vortices are all kind of rotating about the center of a tornado. They each contain a center of low pressure and winds spiraling around them. So you have a combination of horizontal winds that are able to be so strong that they can just, you can just lift the top of a piece of pavement off and it's gonna be pulled away, peeled away. Then you have a suction vortex that comes in and literally draws mass upwards from the ground because the up-draft is so strong. NARRATOR: By 2:00pm, the sky's full of potentially deadly super cells raging across Dixie Alley and beyond. This is probably the most serious event, quite frankly going back, maybe over the 32 years I've been here. There are multiple storms, all of these are life threatening. CHRIS: It was gonna be one of those days where if people didn't take cover they were gonna die. NARRATOR: With lives at stake, Matt Laubhan is in just his third week of a new job as a meteorologist at WTVA in Tupelo, Mississippi. MATT: To be a new person forecasting here, I doubted what I was looking at. I'm looking at this, I'm like, I mean this is, this is as extreme as it can get. It's something like I've never seen before. How do I believe that I can convince them to trust me that this kid knows what he's talking about. This could be a tornado developing, it has been reported as a tornado on the ground. Almost every storm on the radar looked like it could be producing a tornado. It was the most overwhelmed I have ever felt. NARRATOR: On radar, many of the super cell storms are showing the ominous hallmark of a potentially developing tornado. A hook echo. MATT: As we go from 2:00 pm to about 2:30, this is a half an hour here. Now look how we have clearly one, two, three, four. Four of these super cellular thunderstorms and even the storms that haven't really developed have a little hook at them. Everything has a hook echo. Every single one of them. NARRATOR: A hook echo is caused by precipitation and rapidly descending cold air at the rear of the storm as it wraps around the supercell's mesocyclone. It's this descending air that can drag a mesocyclone to the ground. And it's a sure sign that a tornado may be about to form. But on April 27th, 2011, the deadly weather system is set to break almost all known records. MATT: What was so different about this was we had so much of the ingredients over such a large area that it wasn't that we're gonna produce one, that we would produce multiple long track tornadoes that aren't just down for a minute and done, but down for half an hour, an hour. NARRATOR: Within minutes of the massive Philadelphia tornado, another super cell is showing the hook echo as it fast approaches the town of Cullman, Alabama. Gosh, goodness gracious. Let's take a look at those cloud bases. Are you kidding me? And you know... REPORTER (over TV): I cannot believe we can see that, that far away. JAMES (over TV): Wow. We watched a rapidly and I mean, rapidly developing thunderstorm that went from a shower to a super cell within literally 20, 25 minutes. It's down. NARRATOR: The tornado has formed. JAMES: Just making a beeline right, right toward downtown Cullman. Based on what we're seeing on the Sky Cam, that tornado down at the base could be one half mile wide. Goodness gracious, everybody in downtown Cullman should be in a safe place, hunkered down right now. NARRATOR: But Kitty Spears, owner of Cullman's Busy Bee Cafe has decided to stay at work. KITTY: It's 3:00, it was closing time and I come to the cash register to get the money and I had just, had pushed a button to open the cash register and all of a sudden my ears started hurting and I was doing this number, and I just happened to look up and I could see coming over the bridge, a cloud on the ground. A big wide dirty cloud. Just coming straight at me. I didn't see a funnel, I just saw a cloud on the ground and I could see stuff flying in the cloud. I could see debris flying, it was dirty, nasty looking. And that's, I knew it was a tornado. JAMES (over TV): This is coming right through the middle of downtown Cullman and you can see the debris swirling underneath this thing. This is a tornado emergency for the city of Cullman. Goodness gracious. We knew this was bad and I had great fear that we would have loss of life. NARRATOR: Kitty Spears's son, Kyle and his father race towards downtown Cullman and Kyle films the aftermath. As they reach the Busy Bee Cafe they make a shocking discovery. KYLE: It's just a whole pile of rubble. When we came around the corner, we see that the business was destroyed. There was nothing there. We just drove round as fast as we could and just parked in the middle of the road and I ran out, screaming for my mom. The whole Busy Bee was destroyed. My dad, well he was running around frantically too, looking for my mother. This is the whole downtown area. And he was running around lifting things up. We were both just frantic, I was yelling, he was pulling and flipping everything over to see if he could find her in the rubble. It was just absolutely obliterated. Church is tore up... NARRATOR: It's not just the Busy Bee Cafe that's gone. Much of downtown Cullman has been destroyed. With fewer than 2% of tornadoes rating at EF4 or higher, Cullman is desperately unlucky to be hit by one. Whole buildings have been leveled and cars lifted off the ground by rotational winds of 175 miles an hour. KYLE: There's East Side Baptist Church right there. NARRATOR: Six people have died. KYLE: See that power line down right there. NARRATOR: Kitty Spears is one of the lucky ones. KYLE: Some people came running up and they told us that my mom had been found in the rubble. She was in pretty, really bad pain, beat up. Bloody and bruised. I was relieved that she was still alive because I thought this was gonna be the day that my mom was leaving me. The roof's gone and it just sucked the whole place out. From the front, the back, no nothing. KITTY: I jumped under the counter as far as I could get and next thing I know, the whole building exploded and I couldn't move. I was just trapped. I could feel everything just falling on top of me, pounding me, hitting me. I couldn't move. I was, I just could not move from the weight of everything on top of me and I didn't realize I was even hurt until they started digging me out. That's when I just started screaming in excruciating pain because I shattered my pelvis. The Wizard of Oz used to be one of favorite movies when I was a child. And then I got to live it. JAMES: Our county... NARRATOR: At the same time as the Cullman tornado, James Spann is tracking another powerful super cell storm that is showing a clear hook echo. JAMES: Southern Mary so this lead storm is approaching Hackleburg. NARRATOR: The longest and most deadly tornado of the super outbreak is about to strike. Everybody in Hackleburg, be in a safe place now. NARRATOR: Mid afternoon on the 27th April, 2011, and a powerful super cell storm is bearing down on the town of Hackleburg, Alabama. MATT: I was just pleading with the viewers, you've got to listen. You've got to pay attention. You've got to get shelter. You wanna be in an interior part of that lowest floor. Take blankets and pillows with you if you can, otherwise get underneath something sturdy. If you're not in a reinforced shelter, if you're not in a well built structure and a tornado with 210 miles per hour winds is coming towards you, if you're in a mobile home, you will die. JAMES: And so this lead storm is approaching Hackleburg. Everybody in Hackleburg NARRATOR: Then meteorologists' worst fears are realized. The tell tale sign of a tornado touching town, known as a debris signature forms on radar. It confirms the super cell has now spawned a tornado and it's heading straight for Hackleburg. MATT: A debris signature is literally a circle that you see on radar and at the middle of that circle is where the tornado is and all of the debris that's being lifted off the ground is reflecting back the energy to the radar site. And so that deepest purple, that's a bunch of trees and that's a bunch of houses and other things that are all just spinning around at more than 200 miles per hour. NARRATOR: The tornado rips through Hackleburg and it shows no sign of stopping as it bears down on the neighboring town of Phil Campbell and its population of just over 1,000 people. Local police officer, Gary Wayne Mays, grabs a camera and begins filming the approaching tornado. GARY: When I came out, I got here and I noticed the clouds were looking real black back that way and it kind of reminded you of watching the Wizard of Oz. You know, you're watching it and you're seeing this big swirling cloud up there. Phil Campbell (inaudible) a 911. I got rotation coming to Phil Campbell right now. (inaudible police radio). You saw bright white on this side and bright white on this side and it was just black. It was just intense wind. You could hear the debris getting torn off the buildings right in front of you. It's heading right at us. Get some place safe! JAMES: This thing had a wind velocity of 200 miles per hour or greater. You can't really imagine that. Even well engineered homes were totally taken off their foundation. NARRATOR: With just nought .1% of tornadoes traveling more than 100 miles this long track tornado stays on the ground for more than two hours, covering a distance of 130 miles as it rips through a region with a high concentration of mobile homes. It's the second EF5 to hit Dixie Alley within 60 minutes. JAMES: Most tornadoes are down for five, ten, 15 minutes, they're gone. Most tornadoes are EF0s or EF1s. This was an EF5. EF5's are excessively rare. To have two of them, two of them side by side in one day was simply remarkable. GARY: You don't expect to come to work that day and have 26 people die on your shift. We found a young child that had been killed. I didn't find him, but I was there just shortly after the, one of the fire department gentleman found him and it's bad when it's an adult, but it's a little worse feeling when it's a child. NARRATOR: As the tornado continues to move north-east, it becomes the deadliest for half a century as 72 people lose their lives. At the same time, a third EF5 is about to land near the town of Smithville, Mississippi. NARRATOR: With a wave of potentially deadly super cell storms moving across the southern United States, James Spann is desperately trying to warn viewers to take shelter. JAMES (over TV): A lot of the severe weather parameters are just off the charts. Any of these storms could erupt and go severe in a heartbeat. NARRATOR: But there's a limit to meteorologists ability to precisely forecast a tornado. JAMES: It is the most frustrating thing. We can see this violent rotation on radar, but we don't know if it's aloft or on the ground. We have no idea. To really for sure know if there's a tornado down, we need somebody looking at it. NARRATOR: And with only around 20% of super cells forming into tornadoes, this leads to another problem. LEIGH: We currently have about a 75% false alarm rate with tornado warnings. For every three out of four tornado sirens that goes off, only one in four is a tornado. And rightly so, the public can sometimes get a little jaded from that. NARRATOR: But with so many massive super cells still raging, meteorologists at national weather offices across the region are taking no chances. CHRIS: We are really, really pushing it hard with this event due to all ingredients coming together for violent killer tornadoes. At that point, it's a matter of do people have a safe place to go? And are they gonna get to it? NARRATOR: After a day of intermittent sirens, retired truck driver, Paul Estis and his family are at their local diner in Smithville, Mississippi, trying to go about their lives as normal. PAUL: The storm sirens were going off and on through the day, but we'd gotten to a point where we just didn't, we got kind of complacent. So, "Oh, there goes the sirens again." just after 3:30 pm, everything changes. PAUL: Well the next thing I knew, one of the employees said, "there's a tornado on the way, shut the gas off and y'all get in the cooler." So I jumped in the cooler and pulled the cooler door shut. This is what we hid in to get away from the tornado and get into some safety. My daughters were screaming and I could hear my wife praying and I grabbed the door and that was my job, was to hold that. Hold that door shut. NARRATOR: Just after 3:40 pm, the third EF5 in just over 60 minutes touches down. With rotational speed in excess of 200 miles per hour, it's heading directly towards the town of Smithville. It's so powerful that it lifts a vehicle 130 feet and sends it smashing into the town's water tower. MATT: I've never seen the debris signature that was that compact. Within the next scan, Smithville's been hit and that storm is already through Smithville and then the reports start coming in from the field and it's just... You're shell shocked. It's absolute utter devastation. NARRATOR: As the storm subsides, it's clear much of central Smithville has suffered catastrophic damage. But Paul Estis and his family have clung to life inside the diner. PAUL: When we come out of the cooler, everything was devastated. Everything was leveled. Wood, twisted metal, all the way across to my parents home. NARRATOR: Paul's parents house has been completely destroyed. PAUL: Well, when I got here, well it just looked like somebody had shoved it to one side and just broke it into splinters. It was devastating. I don't know that I'd ever saw anything like that before. You know, I seen pictures on TV of wars and stuff, but I've never seen anything just destroyed like that. That got me scared because I knew mum and dad was in the house and as I got here, my dad was still alive. He was blown over to the driveway. He had been covered up with much of the debris, but I couldn't find my mamma. He said he was holding her hand and she just went up and away from him. And he said "I couldn't hold on to her." I just stood there and cried. I mean, I had a good idea she was gone, mom was dead, but I just stood there and cried. NARRATOR: In just over 60 minutes, there have now been three deadly EF5' s across Alabama and Mississippi. MATT: To have three within an hour, within the geographic distance we're talking about here, is just un, I mean it's unbelievable. It's unfathomable. when it seems things can't get any worse, just 100 miles from Smithville, another tornado touches down. And this one is heading straight for one of the most heavily populated towns in Alabama. JAMES (over TV): This is a large violent tornado coming up on downtown Tuscaloosa. Be in a safe place right now. NARRATOR: A mile wide, multiple vortex tornado is on track to hit the densely populated city of Tuscaloosa. That is a huge tornado that is moving right up on downtown Tuscaloosa. This is an extremely violent situation. Don't take any chances with this. This is as violent a situation as you'll ever see. I want anybody in the city limits of Tuscaloosa to stay sheltered. University student and TV intern, Victoria Sheehan takes shelter at the local station. VICTORIA: I went down into the news room and I remember at one point through the chaos, I mean we were all working on trying to answer phones and trying to keep the latest update of where was this thing? And I just remember hearing someone say, "Oh my god, there it is." NARRATOR: News anchor, Lynn Brooks is watching from the same building. LYNN: We watched this monster form before our very eyes and I'm watching this on the monitor and I thought, I had a home video camera with me and I'm recording this whole time and I come out of the stairwell and look out of the window and there it is. That huge monster that has come to our city. It's in a rotation. You're just drawn into this... See the debris. Unimaginable sight. It's coming over campus buildings. Everything went black. Boom! JAMES (over TV): If you are in the city limits of Tuscaloosa or on the campus of the University of Alabama, stay sheltered. tornado approaches downtown Tuscaloosa, 25 year old Ryne Chandler and his friend, Nate, decide to ignore the warnings. RYNE: I was watching James Spann on the news talking about the storms that were coming through, that's actually when I sent out a tweet to see if anybody wanted to chase the storm. And my friend, Nate actually replied and said he was game. Then we took off down 15th Street. There it is. All of a sudden it was right on top of us. JAMES (over radio): This is a RYNE: It was just this wall of churning clouds bigger than anything that you could really imagine. The raw power behind it was incredible. NATE: That thing is... Go Chandler. RYNE: It was one of those things you were almost drawn to. I was transfixed on it. NATE: Go the (bleep) back, I'm not kidding. RYNE: Oh my god! Nate definitely felt like we were too close and that's when he became pretty emphatic that we needed to back up. We just put it into reverse and went and reversed down the wrong way on the interstate. NARRATOR: At one and a half miles wide, the vast tornado rips through the city. We're getting reports of major damage in Tuscaloosa. Look at the debris and all you can do is just NATE: I can't even recognize this place. That's power lines. Look at this. RYNE: Oh my god. NATE: I can't believe it. RYNE: I've never been to war, but it would be the closest thing I've seen to what I would describe as a war zone. Houses looked like they had been exploded or imploded. Building materials were everywhere. NARRATOR: As they drive through the devastation, suddenly they spot a sign of life. RYNE: Hello? NATE: Get in. RYNE: Come on. WOMAN: Oh my god, oh my god! NATE: Are you okay? Are your people okay? WOMAN: I don't know. I can't. RYNE: All of a sudden everything went from fun and games and chasing a storm to a reality that there were people that were trapped and people that were hurt and people that could be dead. WOMAN: I can't call nobody. Oh my god y'all. NARRATOR: A deadly has just hit a densely populated area of Tuscaloosa. Local student, Victoria Sheehan, films the aftermath with no idea if her home is still standing. VICTORIA: There's just people walking down the main roads in Tuscaloosa. Oh, this used to be the church. We actually came over a slight hill and you could look out and you saw University Boulevard and it was just, it looked like a war zone. (helicopter rotors and sirens) I remember there were helicopters flying over above. They were still doing search and rescue. I remember the first time realizing like, this is my community. This is where I live. We walked and we turned and there was so much debris. I mean, I've just never seen anything like this. But we looked out and for a second it looked like my apartment. We were all so excited. FEMALE: Oh my god! VICTORIA: No, there's someone in it! Apartment. FEMALE: There's someone in there. They're supposed to be in there. VICTORIA: It's bad. FEMALE: Here, that's the bottom. VICTORIA: Wow. In an instant, it comes into focus that actually I don't see anything of my apartment left. (sighs). There were kids right down the street that died and didn't have a chance at a future. The fact that their story ends there, it's really tough because there's nothing that can be done to bring them back. And it was just one afternoon. Just one afternoon in April and they, they didn't wake up that day thinking this would be their last. LYNN: It doesn't look like our city anymore. Where did it go? Where is our city? You live on the same street for 20, 30 years and people would make the wrong turn to go to their own home because there's no more landmarks anymore. NARRATOR: With damage of more than $2 billion, the Tuscaloosa tornado becomes one of the most costly in US history. With winds in excess of 190 miles an hour, it's rated at EF4. More than 4,000 homes are destroyed and 65 MATT: I think we could have done much better. I think with hindsight, you know which of these storms was going to be a killer. You can hone in more on those. I would love to think with more experience, that we could have said the right things. But they were going to be killers, regardless. JAMES: There was no book, there was no manual, there is no class on how to handle one day with 62 tornadoes in one state. History will judge us on how we performed that day. I don't know, I have no earthly idea. But to me, it wasn't the number of EF5s, it wasn't the number of EF4s, it was the number of people that died. That's what's in my mind. LYNN: We all experienced our weakest moment. We had been brought to our knees by this. LYNN: But in that moment of weakness, when all the material possessions where stripped away and you realize you had maybe someone that you love to still hold onto, you saw a strength in people like you would have never seen otherwise. NARRATOR: By the end of April 28th, 2011, over four consecutive days, 362 tornadoes have caused damage in excess of $11 billion. 321 people have lost their lives in one of the most devastating tornado outbreaks in US history.