And thanks Mike for your posts - though I'm still not quite sure what to make of the last one. Interesting...um, yeah, that's it.
Anyway, while the compy was in the shop, I made various trips to two of the local libraries, the Mid-Continent Library South Independence branch, and the Kansas City Library Trails West branch, for internet access.
Changing the subject…
While at Trails West, I noticed a book display “Of Local Interest”. Here’s the one that caught my attention…
…so I checked out and read “Caught In the Path” by Carolyn Glenn Brewer. I’ll not attempt to make a full fledged book review; the comments on Amazon.com (where I found this photo) describe the book well. (By the way, the cover photo is of the tornado when it was out in the country near Spring Hill, Kansas, before it crossed into Missouri to wreak destruction in Martin City, Hickman Mills, and Ruskin Heights). I found other photos online from a NOAA site, so if you’re curious you can click and see what the tornado looked like from the Ottawa Kansas airport, a wider view of the book cover photo - note the multiple funnels – near Spring Hill, and the destruction of the Ruskin High School, the path through Ruskin Heights, and a close-up showing concrete slabs and debris.
If you’re expecting loads of technical terms, diagrams, and textbook explanations of how tornadoes form, that’s not what this book is about. The stories here are personal eyewitness accounts of people in the path, where they hid to ride out the storm, including one account of a survivor caught outdoors, who was briefly inside the funnel. The book is all the more fascinating for the personal touch. The last half of “Caught In the Path” details how individuals coped with the aftermath; finding family members, the cleanup, and how they pulled together as a community to rebuild.
A few things I found interesting…
I read some old, everyday expressions I haven’t encountered in years. One woman described what she had been doing just before the tornado hit, she had been “sprinkling clothes”. I remember my mom doing that as part of the ironing process…before steam irons were common. Later in the book, after the storm, another lady mentioned seeing a “fire wagon” drive down the street. I haven’t heard them called anything but fire engines or fire trucks for decades now.
I was reminded of some of the bad old tornado safety advice, which was thought to be good advice at the time. Some people wasted time opening windows to “equalize the pressure”, and didn’t quite get to the safest shelter in time. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame them. We were all told to do that for years, until the weather experts studied enough tornado damage to conclude it didn’t help, and the extra time spent would just put you at risk.
Also, there was one mention of a family who intended to get to the southwest corner of the basement, but didn’t quite get there…fortunately, as it turned out. Most of their house collapsed into that corner, and they would have been crushed. For many years we were told the southwest corner of the basement was the safest place, but the more recent advice I’ve heard is to get under a sturdy table or workbench, in a basement closet if you have one, or under the stairway if there’s an opening. These places offer better protection from falling debris.
Understandably, survivors separated from family members were in a state of panic, trying to find their loved ones. It struck me how difficult it was for people to find a working telephone, how many blocks they had to walk, to let relatives or friends outside the damaged area know they were all right. I suppose that today if an F5 tornado hit enough cell phone towers that could still be an issue. But I suspect with the narrowness of a tornado’s path (intense destruction, but not widespread like a hurricane), that most cell phone repeaters would still function, and it would be easier and quicker now to contact people afterward, than it was back then.
Except for my time away at college, I’ve lived in the Kansas City area my entire life. So in the book I recognized the names of several local television and radio personalities, Walt Bodine, Randall Jesse, Charles Gray, Joe Kramer, Bill Leeds, and also that of Kansas City mayor H. Roe Bartle.
May 20, 1957 - What I remember
On a personal note, I was only 3 1/2 years old at the time, but I distinctly remember that storm and I doubt that I’ll ever forget it. We lived in the Maywood neighborhood at the time, now part of Independence, Missouri. So, not only did the tornado miss us by several miles, but I don’t recall any hail damage either (of course, while the storm was in progress we didn’t know that the tornado would miss us). It was a tremendously strong thunderstorm, with a great deal of thunder and lightning, and it really poured too.
Since that night, on occasion the story of the Ruskin Heights tornado has come up in our family. My sister Connie has told of something she and our mom had done earlier that day. Apparently the early part of the day was really nice (I don’t remember that part), and they had planted some flower seeds. Later on none of those flowers came up; the downpour from the storm was strong enough that it washed away all of the seeds.
Anyway, I don’t recall being scared of the storm at first. We had the TV on, and I was sitting up on the top of the couch with my back against the wall; enjoying the loud thunder and the flashes of lightning. It would have been about time for the usual TV routine, news, weather, and sports. But it was all about the weather, and the weatherman seemed more anxious than usual. Still that didn’t really register with me, until my folks started to get nervous. Someone called to me to come down, and I remember thinking I was about to get in trouble for sitting on top of the back of the couch. So I slid down to sit in the couch the right way with my back against the cushion.
About then the rest of the family “freaked out” for want of a better word. This was the first time I had ever seen my folks, or for that matter any adult, really alarmed about anything, and that’s what I remember most about that night. Someone shouted to me to get to the basement. I was still enjoying watching the TV and hearing the thunder, and I really didn’t want to go to the basement.
Allow me to backtrack for a bit to explain my aversion to that basement. First of all, to get down there one of the adults had to lift the door up from the back porch floor, which was weird enough; then we could walk down the steps. The point here is that I really, really didn’t like being in the basement of that old house. The walls were rough like stone, and it always seemed damp down there. The only other thing besides my dad’s workbenches was a big, old furnace (maybe a water heater too, but I don’t really recall where that was). The furnace had a round window where you could look in and see the flame of the pilot light; a huge, old, noisy, scary furnace with a mean looking glowing eye. It seemed that way to me when I was three, anyway.
When I didn’t get off the couch right away, mom or dad (I don’t recall for sure who) came and grabbed me. I remember being led by the hand, and I may have been picked up and carried part of the way (I’m a little vague on that detail). My sister, our parents, and I stayed in that old damp basement until the storm let up.
So, no damage in our neighborhood, but we saw pictures of the destruction on the TV and in the Kansas City Star. One thing mentioned in “Caught In the Path” that I remember hearing when I was a kid, was the trouble the sheriff’s deputies, police, and National Guard had in keeping sightseers away, so the rescue and cleanup efforts wouldn’t be hindered.
Two weeks later, my grandpa Wingate from Ohio came for a visit, and to celebrate his birthday. He had heard about the tornado, and wanted to go see the path it took through that neighborhood. By then the roads were clear and the Guard didn’t stop us from driving through. I vaguely remember seeing a lot of torn up stuff lying in yards, and Connie remembers seeing what remained of the Ruskin High gymnasium. When that had been built, along the outer brick wall were installed individual aluminum letters, spelling out RUSKIN. After the tornado, what was left spelled RU IN. In later years I remember seeing a newspaper photo of that sign.
If the weathermen had been shy about tornado warnings before, they sure weren’t after. I’ve been told that they overdid it for a while, that sometimes warnings would go out for what turned out to be just a big black rain cloud. I think everyone became more aware of what could happen during severe weather season, but all I know for certain is that I grew up in tornado alley and became fascinated with storms. As a kid, I learned that tornadoes came and went, and that there had been many, and would be many more. For years though, you would sometimes hear someone refer to The Tornado. Everyone around here knew which one that meant.
I also learned that the odds of seeing a tornado myself were low. “Tornado alley” covers a huge area, and most likely the next time one touched down, it would be many miles away. One spring (I think in 1964), a small tornado came near our grade school. The teachers hustled us off to one of the basement classrooms. At the end of the hallway was a big window, and I wanted to stay by the window in case it came around where I could see it. That wasn’t allowed, of course.
I did finally see one three or four years later, an F0 or weak F1 that actually struck the corner of our “new” house, right as it lifted back up into the clouds. That’s another story, so I’ll spare you lengthy detail; except to say the neighbors lost all the shingles off their roof, and we had some tree damage. My dad also had to replace a ham radio antenna. That’s the only one I’ve actually seen touch the ground, but I’ve seen a fair number of rotating wall clouds, and funnel clouds “part way down”. And most every year it seems tornadoes or funnel clouds will touch down or pass over part of our county, and we’ll hear the warning sirens blow.
Severe storms are fascinating to watch from a safe distance, but you have to respect the damage they can do.
2 comments:
Bob I remember that because every one down here was so worried about you and since Grandma and Poppy did not have a phone they drove over to Branson to use ours to call and check. That happened alot if anything happened that they heard on the news that might affect you guys. we had to call anytime there was a TWA crash anywhere. Its hard to imagine being that cutoff but I don't remember them having a phone for many years. love d
Dolores,
I wasn’t aware of that, but I’m not surprised. I can imagine them both being worried, and Grandma maybe being extra nervous about it. They were such wonderful, caring people.
I remember when they didn’t have a phone, for many years. On at least one occasion, we went down to the farm before my Dad, who needed to stay home for a flight; he was to join us later. One evening I remember riding with my Mom to Forsyth to call home from a pay phone. It was one of those old enclosed phone booths, and there were a bunch of moths flying around the light in the top of the booth.
And years later we arrived at the farm to find that Poppy had had a phone installed. As I recall, it sat on a small table in the southwest corner of the living room, against the kitchen wall. It had a loud ring, but I wonder if Poppy missed a few calls even so, if he was on one of the porches or in the pump house. And I’m pretty sure he was on a party line.
As for the occasional TWA crash, we had the advantage of knowing where Dad was supposed to be. We did know some of the other pilots based in KC, so we would wonder at first if it was anyone we knew or had heard of.
One of the TWA engineers, whose name escapes me right now, came to my Dad’s visitation. He allowed that the engineers sometimes didn’t like it when they found it was Captain Wingate’s flight. Apparently Dad was a real stickler about walking around and inspecting the plane before each flight, and would make them check things again and tighten anything that looked loose to him.
Rightly so, I say.
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