Word: tornadoes
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...together in these rare dugouts. Not everyone heard the warnings, and not everyone who heard heeded them. By 7 p.m., when the twister swirled over the state line with a roar like a highballing freight train, the 16-store Ruskin Heights shopping center was dotted with evening shoppers. The tornado ripped a path 70 miles long, in some places ploughed a 1,000-yd. swath, splintered more than 700 homes and 40 stores. Ruskin Heights and its shopping center were hard hit. Four died when a supermarket roof collapsed. Total storm toll: 38 dead, 200 injured...
...week before Kansas City's disaster, 22 people died when a tornado struck Silverton, Texas. In the week after, so many twisters swept the Southwest that the normally restrained Weather Bureau found the situation "fantastic." One storm hit the small (pop. 207) town of Fremont, Mo. and demolished it, killing six and injuring 50. Seven others died in Missouri tornadoes the same day. At week's end, the U.S. Weather Bureau logged the highest one-day tornado count ever recorded in the U.S.: 50 twisters whirled across the West and Southwest, killing at least four more...
...coming our way . . . boiling along, churning rather slowly. It ought to be here in just one minute. Now, we're going to have to step out of the way here to let this tornado go past. There it goes!" Seconds later, as the black twister screamed past him, Newsman Bob Whitten of Dallas' KRLD told radio listeners how the tornado flipped a huge trailer truck 50 ft. into air, then smashed it down atop an empty car. Listeners could hear the thud of debris on and around Whitten...
Like Whitten, newsmen from other Dallas radio and TV stations helped make last week's devastating storm what one scientist called "the best-documented tornado in history." As the whirling funnel gouged a path through the city from southeast to northwest, killing ten, injuring 200 and causing a $4,000,000 loss in smashed homes and businesses, radiomen tracked it closely in swift mobile units. Since the twister rarely moved faster than 20 m.p.h., they often sped in front of it, frequently beat police and disaster units to scenes of havoc. They gave thousands of homeward-bound motorists accurate...
...When the tornado struck across town from his home, NBC Cameraman Maurice ("Moe") Levy, 34, grabbed his 16-mm. hand camera, hopped into his car and headed straight for the distant black column. He met it within the city's Negro district, stopped his car every few feet (leaving the motor running) to get pictures, never let it get more than 200 yds. away. Once he returned to his car to find it jammed with terrified survivors. Their terror grew when they realized, after refusing to get out, that Levy was trying to stay with the twister...