Remembering the Atlanta tornado

What a difference a week can make!  Today’s beautiful blue skies and warm sunshine have been so enjoyable.  Last Friday seems like almost like a dream.  We knew bad weather was a distinct possibility, and, being lifelong Georgians, we knew that might possibly entail severe thunderstorms and a possible tornado watch.  What we didn’t anticipate was this:

Taken from the balcony of a Howell Mill Road condo one mile north of downtown Atlanta by Shane Durrance, it’s an awe-inspiring shot of a lifetime. 

Originally it was thought that the slightly darker area between the two lighter areas was the tornado.  Experts now say that, in actuality, if you look closely at the left side of the photo, to the right of the Bank of America building (with the illuminated triangular shaped top), you can see the funnel cloud sucking up debris from the downtown area.  In either case, I just plain get the shivers every time I see this photo. 

Thanks goes to inDecatur.org for posting this last Sunday, March 16th, four days before AJC finally put it on the front page of yesterday’s paper. 

Photographer Shane Durrance, a native of Alabama who moved to Atlanta in 2000 to attend the Art Institute of Atlanta, caught this photo from the roof of his condo building, 1016 Lofts, one mile north of the downtown area, while taking photos of lightning strikes in the storm.   He was using his Canon 5-D camera, with a 17-35 2.8 lens. 

From the AJC: 

Sirens were piercing the sky while the lightning was illuminating part of the city,” Durrance said in an e-mail. “I was on my toes trying my best to be ready every time the sky would light up to take a shot.”

Shane specializes in advertising, fashion, celebrity and wedding photography.  If you’d like a copy of this photo of the Atlanta tornado, it is available here.  After viewing this photo many times, I am still amazed that there was no loss of life here in Atlanta.