Ala. Chief Turns Jail into Shelter after Dad, Daughter Lose Home in Tornado

Tim Stiegel leaned on a construction trailer, his head in his hands, as he watched strangers pick through what had once been his home.

A woman approached him and said, “You look like you need a hug,” and proceeded to do just that.

“I’m just so overwhelmed,’’ Stiegel, a City of Calera employee, told the woman.

Stiegel’s mobile home on 13th Street took one of the hardest hits in what was possibly an EF-1 tornado with estimated winds of 90 mph in Shelby County’s Calera area.

There were no injuries reported, and the damage was spread out.

Multiple RVs were overturned at the heavily-damaged Burton Campers just off Interstate 65, and a construction trailer was blown from the new hotel to the Milo’s parking lot.

Calera Intermediate School, which served as a community shelter, will be closed on Monday, due to storm damage. Cleanup efforts are currently underway and school is expected to reopen on Tuesday.

“I think we had a lot of property damage. It was sporadic. I don’t know why that is, if the tornado was touching the ground or what,’’ Police Chief David Hyche said.

“It’s not like a clear swath of damage like you see sometimes with tornados.”

“I was outside when it went over and I could see the swirl for maybe five seconds, and then I saw the flash of the transformers going and then it was gone,’’ Hyche said.

The most concentrated damage was at Burton Campers and in the mobile home park, but even there most homes were spared devastation.

Wilmer Gutierez was with his siblings and parents in their mobile home when the weather quickly worsened.

“We started feeling the trailer shake and we started hearing all the trees fall,’’ Gutierez said. “Our neighbor’s shed then crashed into our neighbor’s light post.”

“We had the door open,’’ he said, “and our whole family panicked, and we took off.”

The family drove to Montevallo to find shelter. Their trailer escaped damage.

“It was pretty scary,’’ he said. “We were shaking.”

Bailey Evans, who also lives in the community, had gone to Columbiana to escape the danger.

“We were watching the news and at first they said the whole trailer park got it,’’ Evans said. “Then they said only one house and we very quickly came back.”

Bailey’s storage shed was destroyed, and they lost a few trees.

On Sunday, she was going through boxes and plastic containers to see what could be salvaged from the shed.

“We’re just trying to get everything dried out really,’’ Evans said.

Stiegel, his 31-year-old daughter and their dog and cat, left minutes before the tornado struck Saturday night. They sought shelter in a friend’s basement.

He returned almost immediately to rescue his dog from their home.

“It was devastating seeing my trailer look like this,’’ said Stiegel who has worked for the city’s Parks and Recreation division for 10 years.

Dozens of volunteers flocked to the mobile home park where Stiegel lived Sunday, some providing food and water, others donning gloves and cleaning up storm damage.

“It’s overwhelming,” Stiegel said. “I’m trying to keep up with what they’re saving and what they’re throwing away. It’s just hectic.”

“The hardest part is trying to make sure me and my daughter have a place to stay,’’ he said.

One of those volunteers was Daz Goodman, whose family lost everything in the 2021 floods in Hoover.

“When I saw this happened, it was immediate for me to come here and help out,’’ Goodman said. “I don’t know anybody but one person here and this just shows what community is about.”

Stiegel, his daughter and their pets had to spend the night in a Calera City Jail cell because there were no hotel rooms available.

Hyche said a Vestavia Hills police officer found Stiegel and his daughter standing outside what was left of their home and took them to the police department for help.

“They fell through the cracks, so thankfully a Vestavia officer found them standing outside their destroyed trailer and brought them to us and we had to put them up for the night,’’ Hyche said.

‘’We cleaned it up for them and made it best we could. We got them something to eat and that was all we could do.”

Hyche said they closed a steel door to keep the Stiegel family isolated from any criminals being booked in, but said the family was clearly shaken.

“I was a little disappointed that he didn’t get any help from anybody else,’’ Hyche said.

Fortunately, he said, the city somewhat dodged a bullet. Still, the immediate relief effort raises questions, Hyche said.

“What would we have done if we had 50 or 100 families like that?’’ the chief said. “It was 2 a.m. and we’re trying to call churches, and nobody was answering the phone.”

“There’s definitely a gap there that needs to be addressed,” he said.

On Sunday, officers were accompanying Alabama Power crews to help with traffic while repairs were made.

The police chief said a success story was the storm shelters, where staffed, in part, by school resource officers.

“I don’t know how many hundreds of people we had but a couple were totally full,’’ Hyche said. “The schools making their intermediate and high schools available was awesome.”

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