Historical Tornadoes: Remembering the Worst of the Worst

Every year, scores of tornadoes roam the United States. Probably the better part of them have minimal to no human impact, but there are always a fair number that inflict damage, injury, and even death. Some hit a farm or two; others sweep through communities, tearing up homes. No matter how you cut it, they’re bad news, and the people affected by them will never forget the experience.

Once in a great while, though, a tornado comes along whose ferocity and the toll it inflicts on communities set it apart into the upper echelon–that rare one percent which comprise the absolute worst of the worst. There is a uniquely horrifying, haunting, and almost mythical quality about such extreme storms. The great grand-daddy of them all is, of course, the Great Tri-State Tornado of 1925. But there are others, usually known by the town they destroyed. Woodward, Oklahoma. Xenia, Ohio. Topeka, Kansas. Dunlap, Indiana. Moore, Oklahoma. Greensburg, Kansas. Plainfield, Illinois. Wichita Falls, Texas. Saint Louis, Missouri. Flint, Michigan. Worcester, Massachusetts. The list continues.

Many of these monsters, such as the Tri-State and Woodward tornadoes, have no photographic record of the actual storm. Lots of damage photos, but nothing that shows the actual funnel. Others, dating at least back into the early 1950s with the Worcester tornado, were captured on camera.

Many of these storms were a part of larger outbreaks, including such notorious, massive events as the 1974 Super Outbreak, the 1965 Palm Sunday Outbreak, and the 1999 Central Oklahoma Outbreak. Others, such as the Flint-Beecher tornado, occurred as the worst of a relative handful of tornadoes.

Regardless of its unique circumstances, each storm stands apart in terms of property damage, intensity, and either loss of life or, in some cases, a surprisingly low mortality rate given the circumstances. Most notably, the supercell that spawned the 1.7-mile-wide 2007 Greensburg, Kansas, tornado may have also generated the largest tornado ever recorded. Over four miles wide at cloud base, the radar-detected circulation may forever remain a subject of speculation as to whether its tornado-force winds actually reached the ground, but it seems reasonable to think that they could have.

I’ve had the good fortune to chase the historical Six State Supercell, and the exhilarating but disturbing experience of locking onto the tornado following the EF-5 that wiped out a third of Parkersburg, Iowa. But a truly historical tornado, in the league of Greensburg or Moore? Not yet. Hopefully never. I don”t want to witness that kind of carnage. It”s bound to happen from time to time. Thank goodness, such occurrences are uncommon. The part of me that is fascinated with tornadoes would like to score such a coup. But another part of me which recognizes what that implies hopes I never get the chance to see something so awful. I have friends whose lives were terribly impacted by just such an event. I can’t imagine going through something like that, or witnessing it in progress. Metaphorically, it’s one thing to film lions in the wild; it”s another to watch one maul a fellow human being.