As storms raged across Tennessee, thousands are bombarded with alerts on their phones for tornado warnings and watches.
More than 22 million people in eight states had been under a tornado watch Wednesday evening in portions of eight states: Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
If you live in Middle Tennessee, you may have even seen an unusual alert on your lock screen: tornado emergency.
The National Weather Service (NWS) issued tornado emergencies for Southern Maury County, Southern Williamson County and Southwestern Rutherford County May 8.
“At 5:52 p.m., a confirmed large and destructive tornado was located near Spring Hill, or 9 miles east of Columbia, moving northeast at 25 mph,” the weather service said.
What’s a tornado emergency?
A tornado emergency is the weather service’s highest alert level.
It means there’s a large tornado coming and it’s going towards a populated area. They often bring fatalities, but NWS meteorologist Andrew Moulton told Knox News they’re very rare.