TONEY, Alabama -- Gregory John Braden, 59, liked to fix dinner before driving each evening to Birmingham to pick up mail for the U.S. Postal Service, said Braden's sister, Venita Braden. Greg was doing that when a tornado tore through an area near Madison Cross Roads, tearing apart the mobile home he rented. The siblings were a year apart and were close, said Braden, who lives in Michigan. Her brother had struggled the past few years after a relationship had ended, but was finally doing better, she said. He had recently taken up fishing and "would fry these fish so crispy brown," she said.
The two talked several times a day, and they had discussed the bad weather Alabama was experiencing on April 27. He paid attention because he had to drive in it, Braden said. When they spoke about 3 p.m., he asked her if she could hear the wind.
"He said 'I've never heard anything like this," she said.
Even so, Braden doesn't think her brother took the storm seriously. If he had, he might have gone to a nearby storm shelter, as his neighbors encouraged him to do.
"He said, "If it's your time to go, it's your time to go,'" his sister said.
