Calera recovering after tornado hits community

Published 3:03 pm Sunday, March 16, 2025

By Noah Wortham

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By NOAH WORTHAM | Managing Editor

CALERA – Members of the community are working together to clean up debris after straight-line winds and a tornado devastated Calera the night of Saturday, March 15.

According to survey work by the U.S. National Weather Service Birmingham, located in Calera, damage consistent with at least an EF-1 tornado with winds of 90 mph was found in Shelby County in Calera. According to Shelby County Coroner Lina Evans, there were no fatalities.

A significant portion of the destruction was along 14th Street with uprooted trees, destroyed roofs and broken windows with unrecognizable pieces of shrapnel littered everywhere. Several local businesses in the area were damaged, including Little Cubs Learn and Play Daycare and Calera Dance Academy.

Burton Campers at 320 County Road, just off of Interstate 65, was hit hard and saw potentially millions of dollars in damage done to campers with one landing approximately .3 miles away from the lot.

“Our main concern is the people in our Calera community that have had their homes destroyed or family members injured,” said Jody Gardner, general manager at Burton Campers. “We will assess our damages after we check on our customers and their families.”

The business requested that those with campers on the lot be patient as they continue to assess damage from the storm.

The nearby Quality Inn off of I-65 also saw damage to parked vehicles with branches and metal strewn about. One couple who traveled to the hotel for safety recalled the moment the storm hit.

“We were standing outside trying to figure out if something was going to drop,” they said. “And everybody saw on the radar that it was heading this way so we all rushed inside. We got into the interior of the bathroom of the lobby and all of the sudden we get hit—it sounded like being in front of a gigantic fan.”

After emerging from the facility, the couple were greeted by newly wrought devastation surrounding the area they had just been standing in.

“We came outside and there was debris everywhere,” they said. “Metal from the building across the street was in the parking lot. The road going back toward the campground was blocked off by a tree and power lines… There was a power line up the road that was arcing. It pretty much made the entire area a turquoise blue almost… It was just insane”

During the outbreak of severe weather, Calera Intermediate School was opened as a shelter for the community at 1 p.m. before being hit hours later with damage to its awning. Cleanup efforts at the school are underway and the facility will remain closed on Monday, March 17 with the expectation to reopen on Tuesday, March 18.

Throughout the hours of severe weather, the Calera Police Department worked late in to the night assisting the community by helping bring back power, directing displaced families to shelter and undergoing search and rescue operations at damaged homes.

Amidst the chaos of the evening, one particular family was found standing outside their destroyed home with two pets and nowhere to go despite more dangerous weather still being a possibility.

“The family had nowhere to stay and storms were still possible so we brought them to the police department while we tried to locate shelter for them,” Calera Chief of Police David Hyche said. “We called the Red Cross and everyone else we could think of but no one could help on such short notice. The Red Cross said that they could provide assistance the following day. Next, we called dozens of hotels but no rooms were available. Finally, around 2 am, our staff got the exhausted and traumatized family food and water and set up a safe place for them, their cat and dog to sleep at the PD.”

For Hyche, this one moment stands a lesson for how the city can better handle emergency shelter for those displaced in the future.

“I hope that we can learn from this and come up a better alternative for people in this situation in the future,” Hyche said. I want to thank our officers and dispatchers who stayed after a long difficult day to make sure that this family didn’t fall through the cracks.”

With help from neighboring agencies, the Calera Police Department were also able to secure damaged homes and businesses in order to protect them from the threat of any potential looting.

“In spite of the overwhelming task of search and rescue we must also protect damaged homes and businesses from looting and continue to cover routine calls,” Hyche said. “We could not have functioned without the help from our brothers and sisters from neighboring agencies. I’m also very proud to report that we received no calls for looting in the storm’s aftermath. This says a lot about our community.”

Throughout Sunday, members of the community flocked together to aid those who were impacted by the storm. Collectivus Church assisted residents and business owners along 14th Street with cleanup operations as well as at the Baptist Church of Calera which saw its roof cave in during the storm. Sunday afternoon, those affected by the devastation were able to get a free meal at the mobile home park near Grace Community Chapel thanks to donations made by Collectivus Church, Jack’s and Subway.

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