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Tom's Page > Storm Chasing
> May 14th, 1972
| The first tornado I
ever saw was on the morning of May 14th, 1972- Mother's Day. In that particular instance
it wasn't me chasing a tornado- it was a tornado chasing me. I had never seen a real
tornado before- back then there wasn't a wealth of video tapes of them. I was west-bound
on 10th Street approaching Mithoeffer and I saw the what I thought to be a "small
whirlwind' southwest of the intersection. At that point there was no visible condensation
funnel to the ground. That changed immediately as it took the roof off the Drake
apartments and debris filled the funnel. I floored the accelerator and blew through the intersection about 150 yards from the tornado- not a particularly bright thing to do. The tornado subsequently lost contact with the ground and the funnel moved east. It dropped down again hitting the Heather Hills Baptist Church- where I had just left. Although the Fujita Scale or F-scale was not in general use in 1972 subsequent damage evaluations place the tornado as an F-4. An F-4 is described as a "devastating tornado" with speeds of 207 to 260 mph. There were 17 people injured in Marion County, but luckily, no fatalities.  Return to my Storm Chasing Page Go to Tom's Page The Wood Family Home Page |
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