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Terrible Tuesday
May. 28th, 2024 11:16 amOn April 10, 1979, was the Red River Valley Tornado Outbreak, which hit North Texas and Southern Oklahoma. At someone’s request, here is a condensed version of my account of Terrible Tuesday. My family was among the fortunate.
It started like any other day really. I was 6 years old, in kindergarten, and it was Spring Break. I had probably been playing on the swing outside at some point, but by the late afternoon I was sitting on the couch watching Popeye on TV. There had been a lot of weather alerts. Before the Internet, they interrupted live broadcasting. (I know they still do, but it was the only way back then.) I had been kind of annoyed that they were interrupting Popeye but admittedly also a little scared, partly because my mom was, and partly because I wasn’t really sure what a Tornado Watch was. All I really knew about a tornado at that point was from The Wizard of Oz. I thought maybe my mom was scared because if a tornado hit and picked up our house and moved it somewhere else, maybe we’d get hurt, like Dorothy had hit her head.
When the Tornado Warning was declared, the TV signal went off the air, and the sirens were blown, my paternal grandfather, who lived down the street, came over because he knew my mom wouldn’t know what to do. (My dad was at work.) They put my siblings and I into the bathtub with blankets. My mom had me hold my brother, who was 6 months old. My sister was 2. My mom and grandfather looked out the back door and could see the tornado about a mile away. My mom screamed when the electricity flickered. It’s a good thing that the tornado didn’t hit our house because the bathroom we are in was on an outside wall with a window. The only room in that tiny house without windows was a closet with an outside wall. I remember hearing what I thought was thunder, but my mom told me it was actually the roar of the tornado, and I thought the tornado was alive and had a personality.
At some point, the electricity was off completely, so we went down the street to my grandparents’ house because they had a gas stove. At least that’s the reason I was given later. My grandfather went to pick up my dad from work and my great-grandmother from her house. Fortunately, neither had been hit. Because Easter was in a few days, my grandmother boiled eggs and had us decorate them with Crayons. I can remember my grandparents’ dog, Jeep, being really creeped out. He stayed curled up in a chair and didn’t want to go outside. My dad said when he did go outside to pee, he kept looking at the sky cautiously and stayed close to the house.
An interesting side note that is irrelevant, but sticks out in my memory was that I was wearing a pink shirt with Grover on it, and my great-grandmother asked if it was Ernie or Bert. I was like, “Uh, Grover.”
We spent the night in the dark with candles and listening to the battery-operated radio, hearing the announcements of which neighborhoods and buildings had been damaged or destroyed, even a few announcements of who had been listed among the dead. We learned that our church had been destroyed, and some women had been there preparing for a salad supper. A few days later, we heard that a lady we knew had been killed there.
I remember my sister and I sleeping in the floor that night, and my brother sleeping on the chaise longue instead of a crib. I didn’t sleep well that night because I was afraid the tornado would come back.
The house had been with only a trickle of water, which my grandmother had been letting go into a pot and then boiling, and then I remember the next morning, it started flowing again, and she yelled, “We have water!” I don’t remember how long we were without electricity or how long we stayed with my grandparents before going back to our house. I do know that my parents shielded us from a lot of the devastation, and lot of it had been cleaned up before we were able to really see it, but what I remember seeing was pretty bad.
It turned out that while our homes had been spared, my aunt Angel had not been so lucky. She and her family were not home at the time the tornado hit. They were at my other grandparents’ house, which was also spared, but their home was in Faith Village, one of the parts of town that was hit the hardest. Though the structure of their home was intact, it wasn’t livable in, and they were provided a trailer home by the government until they were able to rebuild.
For many years, there was evidence of the tornado everywhere in Wichita Falls, even after most of the rebuilding was done. As a child, I would often play on empty slabs with friends. We called them “skating rinks”. Eventually, they were all filled in by new homes. Also, I wasn’t allowed to go barefoot outdoors due to there still being a lot of glass, nails, and sheetrock being leftover on the ground, hidden in the grass. Several of my friends would still go barefoot and step on them. (I fell once, and my hand landed on glass.)
Most new homes built here now have storm shelters or at least with more stable interior rooms. Kind of like learning from the sinking of the Titanic. Many of the people who died (42 in total, I believe) died in a vehicle after leaving a home that was untouched by the tornado, so education was very important here. It has been pounded into my head since I was a child that a vehicle is that absolute last place you want to be during a tornado. Many people, even those who were born after 1979, will refer to things that happened Before and After the Tornado. It completely changed the town. At the time, I believe it was the 5th largest tornado ever to hit the US, and the 2nd largest in Texas and one of the costliest, but that has since changed. In any case, though my family was extremely fortunate, it was still a life-changing event for me, and though I was very young when it occurred a day I will never forget.
If interested, more details and footage can be found if you Google Red River Valley Tornado Outbreak or Wichita Falls Tornado 1979.
It started like any other day really. I was 6 years old, in kindergarten, and it was Spring Break. I had probably been playing on the swing outside at some point, but by the late afternoon I was sitting on the couch watching Popeye on TV. There had been a lot of weather alerts. Before the Internet, they interrupted live broadcasting. (I know they still do, but it was the only way back then.) I had been kind of annoyed that they were interrupting Popeye but admittedly also a little scared, partly because my mom was, and partly because I wasn’t really sure what a Tornado Watch was. All I really knew about a tornado at that point was from The Wizard of Oz. I thought maybe my mom was scared because if a tornado hit and picked up our house and moved it somewhere else, maybe we’d get hurt, like Dorothy had hit her head.
When the Tornado Warning was declared, the TV signal went off the air, and the sirens were blown, my paternal grandfather, who lived down the street, came over because he knew my mom wouldn’t know what to do. (My dad was at work.) They put my siblings and I into the bathtub with blankets. My mom had me hold my brother, who was 6 months old. My sister was 2. My mom and grandfather looked out the back door and could see the tornado about a mile away. My mom screamed when the electricity flickered. It’s a good thing that the tornado didn’t hit our house because the bathroom we are in was on an outside wall with a window. The only room in that tiny house without windows was a closet with an outside wall. I remember hearing what I thought was thunder, but my mom told me it was actually the roar of the tornado, and I thought the tornado was alive and had a personality.
At some point, the electricity was off completely, so we went down the street to my grandparents’ house because they had a gas stove. At least that’s the reason I was given later. My grandfather went to pick up my dad from work and my great-grandmother from her house. Fortunately, neither had been hit. Because Easter was in a few days, my grandmother boiled eggs and had us decorate them with Crayons. I can remember my grandparents’ dog, Jeep, being really creeped out. He stayed curled up in a chair and didn’t want to go outside. My dad said when he did go outside to pee, he kept looking at the sky cautiously and stayed close to the house.
An interesting side note that is irrelevant, but sticks out in my memory was that I was wearing a pink shirt with Grover on it, and my great-grandmother asked if it was Ernie or Bert. I was like, “Uh, Grover.”
We spent the night in the dark with candles and listening to the battery-operated radio, hearing the announcements of which neighborhoods and buildings had been damaged or destroyed, even a few announcements of who had been listed among the dead. We learned that our church had been destroyed, and some women had been there preparing for a salad supper. A few days later, we heard that a lady we knew had been killed there.
I remember my sister and I sleeping in the floor that night, and my brother sleeping on the chaise longue instead of a crib. I didn’t sleep well that night because I was afraid the tornado would come back.
The house had been with only a trickle of water, which my grandmother had been letting go into a pot and then boiling, and then I remember the next morning, it started flowing again, and she yelled, “We have water!” I don’t remember how long we were without electricity or how long we stayed with my grandparents before going back to our house. I do know that my parents shielded us from a lot of the devastation, and lot of it had been cleaned up before we were able to really see it, but what I remember seeing was pretty bad.
It turned out that while our homes had been spared, my aunt Angel had not been so lucky. She and her family were not home at the time the tornado hit. They were at my other grandparents’ house, which was also spared, but their home was in Faith Village, one of the parts of town that was hit the hardest. Though the structure of their home was intact, it wasn’t livable in, and they were provided a trailer home by the government until they were able to rebuild.
For many years, there was evidence of the tornado everywhere in Wichita Falls, even after most of the rebuilding was done. As a child, I would often play on empty slabs with friends. We called them “skating rinks”. Eventually, they were all filled in by new homes. Also, I wasn’t allowed to go barefoot outdoors due to there still being a lot of glass, nails, and sheetrock being leftover on the ground, hidden in the grass. Several of my friends would still go barefoot and step on them. (I fell once, and my hand landed on glass.)
Most new homes built here now have storm shelters or at least with more stable interior rooms. Kind of like learning from the sinking of the Titanic. Many of the people who died (42 in total, I believe) died in a vehicle after leaving a home that was untouched by the tornado, so education was very important here. It has been pounded into my head since I was a child that a vehicle is that absolute last place you want to be during a tornado. Many people, even those who were born after 1979, will refer to things that happened Before and After the Tornado. It completely changed the town. At the time, I believe it was the 5th largest tornado ever to hit the US, and the 2nd largest in Texas and one of the costliest, but that has since changed. In any case, though my family was extremely fortunate, it was still a life-changing event for me, and though I was very young when it occurred a day I will never forget.
If interested, more details and footage can be found if you Google Red River Valley Tornado Outbreak or Wichita Falls Tornado 1979.
