A state held hostage by a bug you can’t see is now bracing for the possibility of storm systems with 200-plus mph tornadoes.

Two big threats in Alabama. Totally different. One could say we are besieged from the inside-out.

Some 429 people in Alabama are projected to be killed by May 16 from the coronavirus.

Some 250 people in Alabama died in the April 27, 2011, tornado outbreak, considered one of the largest of all time with more than 60 tornadoes in the state in an all day rampage.

An EF5 tornado can be a mile wide and spin 300--mph winds.

A single coronavirus is so small that about 3,000 could fit on the period at the end of this sentence.

Yet both dangerous threats share a message to the inhabitants of this planet: As sophisticated and transforming as our science and technology is, Mother Nature can still kick our butt.

As viewers watched tornadoes live on TV in the 2011 outbreak, they felt helpless as tornadoes toppled trees, knocked down houses and flipped cars. Likewise, it’s a sure thing that someone or many someones will die from coronavirus today, and we’ll be helpless to prevent it.

I think about all this as the daylight turns darker and thunder rumbles on an Easter where very few went to church.

Maybe the weather won’t be so bad today. Maybe we get through with a few thunder-boomer storms.

Maybe we really are getting a handle on curbing the spread of COVID-19. Certainly, we’ll find a vaccine before long. The state of Alabama and hundreds of people built shelters after the 2011 tornado outbreak. Some strengthened their houses. Some moved to places less prone to tornado weather.

Because there will be another killer outbreak – tornado or virus.

That’s a given.

And there’ll be stories of heartbreak, stories of loss, stories of heroism.

They are stories of us. Alabamians, Americans, citizens of the Earth.

As we live and die, in this cycle of life.

Mike Oliver is an opinion columnist who writes about living with Lewy body dementia and other things. He wrote extensively about the April 27, 2011, tornado outbreak. Read his blog at www.myvinylcountdown.com

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