Whether you regard coincidental occurrences as just that or divine intervention, what happened here on Friday in downtown Atlanta was noteworthy no matter what your perspective.  As with any metro area on a weekend night, the center of the city was holding the usual assortment of conventions and sporting events.  One of those sporting events was the SEC basketball tournament.  Had the player from Alabama not hit a last-second three-pointer, there would have been thousands of people milling about outside and multiple deaths would have been guaranteed.  The route the tornado went, including steamrolling Olympic Park, is the exact path I (and thousands of others who avoid the busy parking lots closest to Philips Arena and the Georgia Dome) take to my car after sporting events in that area.  Instead, the game went into overtime and thousands of people were in (relatively) safer quarters.

I had no idea what kind of weather was brewing outside since I was in the hinterlands of Gwinnett County working the Gwinnett Gladiators game.  It wasn’t until I got a page from my wife telling me to not get in my car for a while that I had any inkling of what was going on.  Here is where phone browsers come in handy.  I then checked the weather online and found out the details of the horrid storm that was passing over.  As I was driving home south, I had a view of the most intense light show I’ve ever seen in a night time storm.  Little did I know that at the center of that awesome light show was a tornado that was wiping out 20 homes a few miles southwest of my home.

Here’s my view as the penalty timekeeper that Friday night.  Compare it with the view someone had of the photo below it at the same time.

Safe Haven

Not-so-safe Haven (the tornado is the light gray in the middle)