McDonald Chapel, AL

McDonald Chapel is a Jefferson County census-designated place northeast of Pleasant Grove, on the western side of the Birmingham area. The 2020 census counted 739 residents. Its name is attached to a community repeatedly marked by severe weather: the April 1956 tornado crossed McDonald Chapel, the 1998 Oak Grove tornado impacted it, and the April 2011 outbreak put the community in Jefferson County’s disaster-recovery area alongside a broader record of major storms that includes 1977.

That history is visible in the needs residents raised after the 2011 storm. County assessments counted 68 McDonald Chapel housing units as destroyed or damaged and recorded requests for home repair, rebuilding, infrastructure work, and a dual-purpose storm shelter. McDonald Chapel’s local shape is residential: streets and homes connect to Pleasant Grove and the Birmingham metro, while storm shelters, repair work, and county recovery programs are practical parts of community life. The place is defined by those neighborhood ties and by the weather history carried in its streets.