Ana Franklin and Samson, Tornado, Alabama, 4/8/98 The tornado struck the Birmingham, Alabama, area Wednesday, April 8, 1998. That evening the northern Alabama unit was alerted and was deployed to the worst hit areas the next day. All dead and missing had been accounted for; however, the dogs were to search the rubble to see if anyone had been missed. Three dogs and handlers with cadaver training along with support people from the high angle unit searched the area. It took a little time for the dogs to become acclimated to the pervasive scent everywhere. After acclimating, Ana said that Samson did his trained alert, a down, everywhere rescuers had found a body. Ana was able to verify this as all sites where bodies had been removed were marked with flagging. Samson also alerted where injured people had been rescued. at one point he jumped up on the hood of a car, went through the broken windshield, barked at Ana to come in, and then downed on the seat where the blood has soaked into it. Ana attempted to follow Samson into the car through the broken windshield but was prevented from doing so by other rescuers who told her it was too dangerous. That was the hardest part of the search for Ana! After going to his full down alert on blood in several places, Samson got used to the ambient scent and just indicated where there was blood. This allowed the team to search for bodies only. Dogs and handlers worked from 11am to 10pm until they cleared all areas. They didn't find any further victims, but provided the information that the search efforts could cease and the cleanup could begin. Ana said that all the dogs worked very well the entire time. None of the dogs were injured. They worked well among hundreds of rescue personnel, heavy equipment and helicopters flying overhead. It was a successful search.

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