But after a monstrous tornado ripped through the Illinois town of Murphysboro on March 18, 1925, Othella saw nothing but flattened wasteland.
“She couldn’t tell which direction was home,” said Othella’s daughter, 81-year-old Sylvia Carvell.
The deadliest twister in recorded U.S. history struck 100 years ago Tuesday, touching down in southeastern Missouri and tearing up everything in its 219-mile path for nearly four hours through southern Illinois and into Indiana.
It left 695 people dead and more than 2,000 injured, not counting the casualties from at least seven other twisters that the main storm spawned which spun off through Kentucky and into Alabama.
Modern standards qualify the so-called Tri-State Tornado as an F5, a mile-wide funnel with wind speeds greater than 260 mph.
Perhaps the best evidence of its destructive handiwork was found on the Logan School grounds: A wooden board measuring 4 feet long by 8 inches wide driven so deeply into the trunk of a maple tree that it could hold the weight of a man.
It’s on display this month as part of the Jackson County Historical Society’s centennial commemoration of the disaster.
The atmospheric stew that gave birth to the ferocious cataclysm was literally a perfect storm. A surface low pressure system located over the Arkansas-Missouri border moved northeast, blending with a warm front moving north, said Christine Wielgos, warning coordination meteorologist for Paducah's National Weather Service office.
Adding to the terror was the lack of notice. There was no reliable storm forecasting in 1925 and no warning system anyway.
“All they had was they looked off to the West and went, ‘Looking a little dark out there,’ and didn’t even know what it was until it was right up on them and then you’re scrambling to find shelter,” Wielgos said.
The storm took out 40% of the city of Murphysboro, 97 miles southeast of St. Louis. Its 234 deaths were the most of any municipality, with entire neighborhoods flattened. Other towns were virtually obliterated, too, including Annapolis, Missouri; Gorham, Illinois; and Griffith, Indiana.
The Mobile & Ohio Railroad yards, employing close to 1,100, were wiped out. At the twister’s next stop, it ravaged the DeSoto School, killing 38 children.
To this day, the west side of Murphysboro is peppered with small backyard structures that were temporary quarters until families could rebuild larger homes at the front of their lots.
(Photo: Jackson County Historical Society)
On the Net:
Tri-State Tornado . org website
