Week 68: Sawyerville, Alabama

Sawyerville, February 2022

This week I am in Sawyerville, an unincorporated community in Western Alabama. Population is 795, with 88.5% of the population African American, so another small Southern town with a mostly black population.

Sawyerville experienced tornado damage in April 2011, March 2021, and February 2022. Combined, the tornadoes killed eight people, injured 73, and caused a bit of property damage, as you can see. You have to think almost everyone in town knows someone who was killed or injured by a tornado, or had their house trashed, or some combination of those outcomes.

It is 31 degrees here right now. Yesterday, it snowed a little. The forecast going into February is for highs in the low 40s, lows in the 30s and 20s. I am getting tired of this, ready for February to get a little warmer and a little lighter. I got spoiled when we had a week or more of temperatures close to 50 degrees. It isn't normally that warm here during the winter, and it didn't last. It's cold.

If one were to really walk all the way across the country, there would be days that felt great, and there would be others when you would just have to grind through it, put one foot in front of the other. These are grinding days. I'm ready to be done with winter and done with Alabama.