No tornado has ever exceeded the damage done by the 1925 Tri-State Tornado.
In the span of several hours, over 600 people died and over 2,000 were injured.
This is the story of the deadliest tornado in U.S. history.
Although some people who lived in the Midwestern United States knew that tornados existed,
the word itself was off-limits for weather forecasters until the 1950s.
According to the National Weather Service,
"The use of the word 'tornado' in forecasts was at times strongly discouraged and at other
times forbidden, because of a fear that mentioning tornadoes may cause panic."
Smithsonian Magazine writes that in the 1880s,
some researchers had put together a list of criteria for, quote,
"conditions that could lead to a tornado," but the government didn't want to cause a panic
based on less-than-reliable predictions. So instead, the word itself was banned.
Forecasters were forced to come up with euphemisms like, quote, "severe local storms." Meanwhile,
as the Weather Bureau went on to create prediction and warning systems for fires,
floods, and hurricanes, the Weather Bureau Stations Regulations of 1905 stated that, quote,
"forecasts of tornadoes are prohibited." In 1915 and 1934, the Weather Bureau upheld the ban.
But despite the Weather Bureau's reluctance to even say the word, tornadoes were known
to be an occurrence amongst those who lived in the Midwest. According to Mental Floss,
on August 28th, 1884 the first photograph of a tornado was captured in what is now South Dakota.
Although tornadoes have been known to happen around the world,
the continental United States experiences the majority of tornadoes.
Roughly 40 percent of the eastern continental United States can be considered a tornado region.
According to National Geographic,
"Tornadoes form when warm, humid air collides with cold, dry air."
As the jet stream from the Gulf of Mexico travels up,
it hits the cold dry air coming from the north. As the warm air pushes the cold air down,
thunderstorms are created. And as the warm air rises, it can cause an updraft,
which will, quote, "begin to rotate if winds vary sharply in speed or direction."
The spinning updraft is known as a mesocyclone,
and as it draws in more and more warm air as its speed increases. Water droplets from the
air create the "funnel cloud" and once that funnel cloud hits the ground, it's a tornado.
On average, a tornado can last as long as a few seconds or a few hours.
Tornadoes are ranked with the Fujita scale, from F0 to F5, based on their intensity.
"[This is done] by analyzing the damage the twister has done and
then matching that to the wind speeds estimated to produce comparable damage."
On March 18, 1925, the weather forecast had been "showers and cooling temperatures." However,
this forecast wasn't out of the ordinary, and no one seemed to suspect what was coming.
"It's coming! It's headed right for us!"
Even though no one was looking at tornado forecasts in particular,
the Weather Bureau had noticed a low-pressure system that had traveled from Canada, quote,
"all the way to the Oklahoma-Texas border before curving back towards southern Missouri."
Meanwhile, a warm front from the Gulf of Mexico was moving north and the moist warm
air began to mix with the northern air. Temperatures rose steadily that day and
even ended up reaching 70°Fahrenheit around Cairo, Illinois by 4 PM. This mixture created
what's known as a "lifting mechanism" and before long, the storm began to spiral.
Gray skies that had been sprinkling rain over southeastern Missouri suddenly turned black.
In Gorham, Illinois, the storm announced its approach by throwing hail the size of golf balls.
Orange Bean Indiana writes that,
"[People felt] ill at ease as the cloud darkened,
expecting a big storm with rain and flooding. No one expected the massive twister."
And since the word tornado had been banned by the Weather Bureau,
some people in the region didn't even know what a tornado was.
The Tri-State Tornado touched down near Ellington, Missouri. Traveling at 73 mph,
the tornado reached Annapolis, Missouri around 1:30 PM. It left 90 percent of
the town destroyed in its wake. As the tornado crossed the Mississippi, it passed through Gorham,
Illinois and left half of its population of 500 injured. US Tornados writes,
"It came and left so quickly that nobody knew what had really happened.
[In DeSoto, Illinois,] trees were snapped off at knee height and stumps then ripped
out of the ground. No structure was left standing in the tornado's path."
The tornado passed through several mining towns. When the miners came up to the surface,
in West Frankfort, they encountered devastation. Continuing north, the
tornado roared through Princeton, Indiana until it finally dissipated near Petersburg, Indiana.
The length that the tornado traveled was around 220 miles, the longest tornado track
ever recorded, and it lasted a total of three and a half hours. However,
the Electronic Journal of Severe Storms Meteorology states that based on the
tornado's development around noon it's possible that the tornado lasted as long as seven hours.
Throughout its entire path, the tornado raced across the countryside at more than 55 miles
per hour, with wind speeds reaching an astonishing 300 miles per hour. Many have suggested that had
tornado classifications existed at the time, the tornado would have certainly registered as an F5.
In one day, 695 people lost their lives to a single tornado,
and over 2,000 people were injured.
Some were killed by flying debris. Others were trapped and killed under collapsing buildings.
And even as anesthetics ran out, many still had to undergo surgery to have their limbs amputated.
In many of the towns, residents had only seconds to react.
Some people were thrown as far as a quarter of a mile by a tornado that was itself a mile wide.
As the tornado passed through rail yards, boxcars and train tracks were torn from the ground.
One person was reportedly cut in half as a big metal bell was ripped from the roof.
Storm Stalker writes that the mining industry in many of the towns was also devastated because,
"Much of the mining machinery was ripped up and mangled beyond repair."
And although some of the mines continued to operate in a limited capacity for
another 20 years, things were never the way they'd been before the Tri-State Tornado.
To this day, the damage by a single tornado has been unparalleled.
Thousands of people were suddenly rendered unhoused, a situation that
was only worsened by the Great Depression four years later.
Murphysboro, Illinois was hit so badly that some refer to the 1925 Tri-State
Tornado as the Murphysboro Tornado. Over 240 people died in the town,
and this was when the tornado still had another two hours to travel.
The winds of the Tri-State Tornado were so strong that houses were literally torn from their
foundations and flown in different directions. A first hand account in Popular Mechanics said
"[The house of Wallace Akin] reportedly began to levitate and, at the same time,
the piano shot across the room, gouging the floor and carpet [...] The walls began to crack
as the roof ripped free and disappeared, joining the swirling mass of debris.
But the walls and the floor held as we and the house took flight."
The house landed on top of the family's garage,
which they realized had also flown and had landed on top of another house altogether.
Other buildings, like the schoolhouse in the unincorporated community of Ridge, were thrown
several yards into a hillside. Thankfully no one was killed, but dozens were seriously injured.
Some homes were completely leveled, while others, quote, "virtually exploded in a
cloud of shattered timbers and roofing." According to the Building Safety Journal,
"[The tornado] destroyed approximately 15,000
homes and caused $17 million in property damage - $1.4 billion adjusted for today."
Some towns didn't recover until World War II,
when the abandoned lots left behind were finally rebuilt.
Some have speculated that the Tri-State Tornado was in fact a family of tornados, but given its
continuous path, this hypothesis is unlikely. But as the National Weather Service asks,
"Could it be that the 1925 tornado was a rare event — occurring only once in several
hundred years? Did it actually result from a cyclical supercell? Or could it
be that we lack enough information to come to a definitive conclusion at this time?"
"What is that"
According to Electronic Journal of Severe Storms Meteorology,
"Indeed, the somewhat mundane character of the synoptic situation leads one to wonder
why very long-track tornadoes do not occur more frequently."
It's also notable that compared to other tornados, which often have an unpredictable path,
the Tri-State Tornado maintained a straight path for almost 200 miles.
One thing that's for certain is that the lack of prediction or emergency warning services had a
devastating effect. It's understandable that the Weather Bureau was reluctant to release tornado
warnings since they were considered unpredictable. However, if local meteorologists and forecasters
had been allowed to study tornadoes, there could have been some kind of advance warning.
The Tri-State Tornado was followed by heavy rainfall, which led to flooding in many areas.
The Wabash River near Griffin, Indiana flooded and cut the town off from the rest of Indiana.
Despite it being incredibly difficult to get aid to the city,
the American Red Cross arrived to set up tents for the residents. Martial law was
even declared in Griffin and soldiers from the Indiana National Guard were brought in.
Popular Mechanics writes that Murphysboro, Illinois suffered fires as the tornado
trailed off. And because the water supply was broken, it was impossible to put the fires out.
As a result, some who survived the collapsing buildings ended up succumbing to flames.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported,
"Scenes of suffering and horror marked the storm and fire. Throughout the night, relief workers and
ambulances endeavored to make their way through the streets strewn with wreckage, fallen telegraph
poles and wires, and burning embers. The only light afforded was that of the burning area."
People looked for survivors for days, but in areas of flooding or fires,
the chances of survival were low. But some people persisted in moving the rubble,
looking for anyone who might remain. Some found their efforts rewarded,
while others realized after several days that they were searching in vain.
The one good thing that came out of the Tri-State Tornado was the realization that
there should be a push in tornado awareness. The Weather Bureau wouldn't agree for almost
another 25 years and continued to ban the use of the word "tornado," but this didn't
stop local communities from figuring out a forecasting system themselves.
Popular Mechanics writes that after 1925, groups of tornado watchers were mentioned in
local newspapers. These storm-spotter programs were effective in, quote,
"[contributing] to a steady decline in the number of tornado deaths in subsequent years."
In fact, according to Weather and Forecasting, the first hint of a downward trend in fatalities can
be found almost directly after the 1925 Tri-State Tornado. In the 21st century, roughly 50 people
are killed by tornadoes each year, but 100 years ago, that number was almost tenfold.
In the first half of the 20th century, all efforts were community based.
Despite the fact that between 1920 and 1939,
over 4,000 people died as a result of tornadoes in the United States, the Weather Bureau did,
quote, "nothing to try to reduce the loss of life from these natural disasters."
Systematic tornado prediction programs wouldn't be introduced for another 25 years.
It wouldn't be until World War II, when the United States Army decided that they needed
to protect their military installations, that tornado forecasting became a public service.
On March 20, 1948, a tornado ripped through the Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. Afterwards,
Captain Robert Miller and Major Ernest Fawbush were asked by General Fred Borum
to work on tornado predictions so that such an incident wouldn't happen again.
Five days later, the two meteorologists informed General Borum that the weather
conditions on March 25th seemed suspiciously like those on March 20th.
According to Popular Mechanics they issued a tornado warning,
"[Despite the] infinitesimal possibility of a second tornado striking the same area
within 20 years or more, let alone in five days."
And they were right. Another tornado ripped through Tinker Air Force Base,
but this time the General grounded all planes and cleared all air traffic.
Despite seeing the benefit of tornado predictions, it was only applied to Air Force sites on the
continental United States by 1951. It wouldn't be until March 17, 1952, that the Weather Bureau put
out their first public tornado bulletin, which was televised by weatherman Harry Volkerman,
forecasting tornadoes in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas.
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