Word: tornadoes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...long, the clouds had billowed above Johannesburg; in the late afternoon lightning split a sky that was the color of an overripe plum, and the city's jagged skyline vanished behind a curtain of steel-bright rain. Eighteen miles away, a tornado struck the mile-square shantytown of Albertynsville, where 5,000 Negroes and half-castes lived in mud huts. For an instant, the growling air was filled with flying tin roofs; then the pelting rains crumbled Albertynsville's mud huts into a slough of grey ooze that flowed like lava, choked with sticks of furniture, rusty pots...
...drawn up the column by that tremendous unseen force. The column went up & up and finally mushroomed. About three minutes* later, the report, like a nearby cannon shot, hit us and was followed by several seconds of dull rumbling. Then the mushroom expanded into a free halo, growing with tornado-like speed and reaching nearly over our ship before it appeared to cease growing. Then it appeared to connect itself to the main column by a web of filmy vapor. Typical comment from the oldtimers: 'Holy cow. That sure makes the A-bomb a runt...
...Post's story began developing into a most remarkable political tornado. Press services picked it up and spread it across the U.S., where at first it got a treatment indicating editors were only mildly interested. In northern California, reporters interrupted Nixon's first big whistle-stop tour to ask if the fund existed. He said it did. In Washington, Chairman Stephen Mitchell of the Democratic National Committee promptly cried for Nixon's withdrawal as a candidate...
...religious issue on his side. In 1948, despite the Dixiecrat movement, Harry Truman carried 247 of Texas' 254 counties and won the state by more than half a million votes. Even in Texas, where almost everything is done in a big way, it will take a real political tornado to uproot that many Democrats...
...suddenly as it had struck, the tornado blew itself out across the wreckage of the flying line. Last week the Air Force announced the storm's toll: one $3,500,000 6-36 destroyed, 106 others damaged at Carswell and at the Consolidated Aircraft plant. Estimated loss to U.S. taxpayers: $48 million...