4/28/11, Fox News:  Pleasant Grove, AL:  Firefighters are searching one splintered pile after another for survivors Thursday, combing the remains of houses and neighborhoods pulverized by the nation's deadliest tornado attack in almost four decades.  At least 297 people were killed across six states - more than two-thirds of them in Alabama, where large cities bore the half-mile wide scars the twisters left behind.  The death toll from Wednesday's storms seems out of a bygone era, before Doppler radar and pinpoint satellite forecasts were around to warn communities of severe weather.  Residents were told the tornadoes were coming up to 24 minutes ahead of time, but they were just too wide, too powerful and too locked into populated areas to avoid a horrifying body count.  These were the most intense super-cell thunderstorms that I think anybody who was out there forecasting has ever seen," said meteorologist Greg Carbin at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, OK.  "If you experienced a direct hit from one of these, you would have to be in a reinforced room, storm shelter, or underground to survive," Carbin said.  In Concord, a small town outside of Birmingham that was ravaged by a tornado, Randy Guyton's family got a phone call from a friend warning them to take cover.  They rushed to the basement garage, piled into a Honda Ridgeline and listened to the roar as the twister devoured the house in seconds.  Afterward, they could see outside through the shards of their home and scrambled out.  "The whole house caved in on top of that car," he said.  "Other than my boy screaming to the Lord to save us, being in that car is what saved us."  "To me, it sounded like destruction," 22-year-old Son Justin said.  "It was a mean, mean roar.  It was awful."  Greg Harrison's neighborhood was unscathed, but he remains haunted by the wind, thunder and lightning.  "Sick is what I feel," he said.  "This is what you see in Oklahoma and Kansas, not here in the South."  

My Comments:  This is "selective" judgment by God.  As you can determine by one account in the above article, a man remembers his son calling on the Lord for help and the family was saved.  We need to know that the Lord knew this child would be calling out for help and there is no doubt God was behind the neighbor's call, which saved the entire family's lives.  This is God's hand of mercy in the midst of judgment.  Many in this nation have turned their backs on God.  Another man's entire neighborhood was spared, while there is devastation all around him.  People, the Word of God is true and God determines who lives, who dies, who remains protected and who lies unprotected.  These events remind me of scriptures in Psalm 91:7 "A thousand will fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you."  Psalm 28:7 "The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him and I am helped, therefore my heart greatly rejoiced and with my song I will praise Him."   Yes, the Lord will chastise the wicked, but rejoice, if you trust in the Lord, because He is your protector in the time of trouble.  If you don't know Him, it is time to repent and receive the Lord, while there is time.  II Corinthians 6:2 "...behold, now is the day of salvation."  Tomorrow could be too late.