May 11, 2013 (Saturday)
On this day, May 11, 60 years ago, an F5 tornado hit Waco, Texas. It killed 114 people and injured almost 600. Instant memories today are those of blocks of rubble that once were buildings, cars reduced to scrap metal two feet high, and a constant flow of funeral processions in the days that followed.
I was a student at Baylor University at the time, and graduated a few weeks after the tornado.
I left town that afternoon and drove to Cleburne, where Wanda, my sweetheart, lived and taught school. We went to a movie in Fort Worth, and I got back to Waco late that night. When I reached the city, I saw debris on the road, and wondered why it was there. As I got closer to the house on campus where my friends and I lived, I saw that the town was unusually dark. I reached the house, and found no one at home. Wondering what was happening, I drove toward the only light in the sky I could see, which turned out to be the glow of emergency lighting downtown where my friends had joined others in rescue efforts. I was stopped by a National Guardsman, carrying a weapon, and was told about the tornado. That was the first I knew about it.
If you would like to read more and see pictures of the damage, just “Google” the subject and you will find much information on the web.
This is not a regular “blog day,” today, but since I’ve been following anniversaries of historical events lately in these blogs, I could not let this day go by without mention of the Waco Tornado of 1953.