Tornado Oddities

Oddities abound in the stories that have been passed down about tornado "close encounters." This website tackles some of the most interesting.

FROM THE WEBSITE:

The Great Bend, Kansas tornado of November 1915 is the tornado which seems to have a greatest number of oddities associated with it. Why? Who knows! It was an unusual time of year for a violent tornado this far west. In fact, it is the latest date in the year that a violent tornado has ever struck the state of Kansas. The funnel began its late-evening journey five miles southwest of Larned, 16 miles southwest of Great Bend. It was visible only occasionally during the flashes of lightning. The oddities began southwest of Pawnee rock where a farm was leveled to the ground and two people were killed. From a short distance away, one could not tell that a farmstead had ever existed there. Five horses were the only uninjured survivors. They were carried from the barn a distance of a quarter-mile. All were unhurt, all were found together, hitched to the same rail.

At the edge of Great Bend, the Charles Hammond house was unroofed. The family was completely unaware of the damage until they came outside to survey the neighbor's damage. At Grant Jones' store, the south wall was blown down and scattered, but shelves and canned goods that stood against the wall were unmoved. The Riverside Steam Laundry, built of stone and cement block, was left with only a fragment of upright wall, yet two nearby wooden shacks seemed almost untouched. At the Moses Clay ranch, on the east edge of town, 1000 sheep were killed, the most ever killed by a single tornado. A cancelled check from Graeat Bend was found in a corn field, one mile outside of Palmyra, Nebraska...305 miles to the northeast, the longest known distance that debris has ever been carried. A "rain of debris," receipts, checks, photographs, ledger sheets, money, clothing, shingles, and fragments of books fell on almost every farm north and wst of Glasco, 80 miles to the northeast.

A necktie rack with 10 ties still attached was carried 40 miles. A four-page letter "from a swain to his fair damsel in which he promised all" was carried 70 miles. A flour sack from the Walnut Creek Mill was found 110 miles to the northeast, perhaps the longest distance ever recorded for an object weighing more than one pound. Up to 45,000 migrating ducks were reported killed at Cheyenne Bottoms. Dead ducks fell from the sky 40 miles northeast of that migratory bird refuge.

In Great Bend, an iron water hydrant was found full of splinters. Mail was lifted from the railroad depot and scattered for miles to the northeast. Some of it was returned to Great Bend, but some of it was sent on from where it was found... one of the earliest forms of air mail! Farmers living two miles from town were unaware of the tragedy and were "dumb-founded" when they visited town the next day and "beheld the tragic spectacle." Over 20,000 visitors viewed the wreckage the following Sunday.

Fictional oddities were added almost daily to the growing list of stories. An iron jug was blown inside out... a rooster was blown into a jug, with only its head sticking out of the neck of the container.

Visit the website for more fascinating details.