Tornado Alley? A secondhand story
Roanoke tornado #1, originally uploaded by Adam Houston.
Monday night we had the rare treat of hearing the tornado sirens sounded in our Chicago neighborhood of Logan Square. National Weather Service bulletins were sure to include the addendum THIS TORNADO WARNING INCLUDES THE CITY OF CHICAGO for any remaining disbelievers.
That’s because we in Chicago don’t commonly expect tornadoes to hit us. But where I grew up, on a farm halfway between Donovan, Illinois and Morocco, Indiana, we definitely did. I’ve seen the term “tornado alley” used when referring to the Great Plains states in general, but at home I commonly heard this term used to refer specifically to the Donovan-Morocco corridor. And yesterday I began to wonder why this was.
My mom once told me a story that may have originated from my step-dad’s grandfather, Grandpa Lyle, who lived across the road from us. But my mom was also the bookkeeper for the local Ford dealer, one of the only businesses in town, where Grandpa Lyle and other retired farmers frequently gathered to drink coffee and gossip—so it could have come from any one of them. For many years these were my mom’s primary circle of friends, from whom she collected stories, amusing expressions (”well for cry-eye!”), surplus corn and zucchini, and recipes for window wash. She is now buried in the same cemetery with most of these old guys.
But the story… A family was passing in their wagon by the old church than once stood 1/2 mile to the west of our house. A storm was coming and people in the churchyard called to the family to take shelter there. But as the family lived just a short distance away (1/2 mile to the east of our house as I remember it) they thought they could make it easily. In fact they did get home, but a tornado hit as they were trying to get in the cellar, demolishing their house and killing all of them. My kid’s mind always imagined the family being partway down the cellar steps and getting halved by the flying house. It was a gruesome and sad story.
In the 80s I remember two major tornado incidents witnessed by my parents. My mom left her office at Hewson Ford to make her daily walk 2 blocks west to the post office, on an average breezy day. Halfway there the sky darkened, the wind whipped down the block, and she looked up to see a tornado on the horizon, framed neatly by the buildings on either side of the street. She was able to scurry back to the office without peeing her pants, and the tornado did not hit town after all.
My dad, whose work on gas wells frequently took him to Indiana, was driving back to Illinois when a tornado formed near Morocco. He followed it for quite a few miles along his route. I think that tornado did some damage that year, and possibly involved a guy saving himself by hanging on to a refrigerator. I remember that the “Welcome to Morocco” sign on the north side of town featured a tornado, as well as a major league baseball player born there, which I always thought was a funny juxtaposition.
Anyway, I thought I would toodle about the Internet yesterday and see if Donovan and Morocco really do form a sinister path of death and destruction. These towns have somehow escaped Web chronicles outside of some perfunctory entries in Wikipedia and City-data. So here’s what City-data has on the tornado occurrence rates:
Donovan-area historical tornado activity is near Illinois state average. It is 93% greater than the overall U.S. average. On 3/12/1976, a category 3 (max. wind speeds 158-206 mph) tornado 9.9 miles away from the Donovan village center killed one person and injured 15 people and caused between $50,000 and $500,000 in damages. On 5/15/1968, a category 3 tornado 16.5 miles away from the village center caused between $500,000 and $5,000,000 in damages.
Morocco-area historical tornado activity is near Indiana state average. It is 93% greater than the overall U.S. average. On 4/3/1974, a category 4 (max. wind speeds 207-260 mph) tornado 38.0 miles away from the Morocco town center killed 18 people and injured 285 people and caused between $50,000,000 and $500,000,000 in damages. On 4/23/1961, a category 3 (max. wind speeds 158-206 mph) tornado 16.9 miles away from the town center injured 4 people and caused between $500,000 and $5,000,000 in damages.
Chicago-area historical tornado activity is slightly below Illinois state average. It is 58% greater than the overall U.S. average. On 6/13/1976, a category 4 tornado 18.2 miles away from the city center killed 2 people and injured 23 people and caused between $500,000 and $5,000,000 in damages. On 4/21/1967, a category 4 (max. wind speeds 207-260 mph) tornado 11.7 miles away from the Chicago city center killed 33 people and injured 500 people and caused between $5,000,000 and $50,000,000 in damages.
Hm… so rates in Donovan and Morocco are higher than Chicago, but still on par with the IL and IN averages. And in Morocco, 17 or 38 miles from the town center means, um, not in Morocco. Those tornadoes indicated above would be past other towns. So perhaps some narrative data would be more useful:
From gendisasters.com (yes, who knew?) Morocco, Indiana Tornado – April 21, 1912 – Nine persons were killed, five others so severely injured that they are expected to die, half a hundred others bruised by flying debris, and thousands of dollars’ worth of property destroyed in and around Morocco, Newton County, when a tornado swept out of the West this evening. The dead are: Mrs. Charles Rice, Morocco, Ind.; four young children of Mrs. Rice; Frank Rice, a son; Mrs. Frank Rice, his wife; Miss Cassie Smart of Morocco; infant sister of Miss Smart. Those who may die are: Charles Smart, Charles Rice, Bruce Hanger, Medde Hammell, Miss Conn. As near as can be judged here, the tornado started in Iroquois county, Ill., and then swept eastward. Stock was killed when farm buildings went down. – The Washington Post, Washington, DC, 22 Apr 1912
From Wikipedia entry on Sam Rice: Rice grew up in various towns near Morocco, Indiana, on the Indiana-Illinois border, and considered Watseka, Illinois, his hometown. In 1912, Rice was playing with a low-level minor-league baseball team in Galesburg, Illinois, near the Iowa-Illinois border, when his wife, two children, mother and two younger siblings, along with a hired hand on the family farm, were all killed in a tornado that swept through the area. Rice’s father Charles died from injuries sustained in the storm a few days later. Rice left the area shortly afterward, working various odd jobs and eventually joining the United States Navy and fighting in the ill-fated Occupation of Veracruz in Mexico. Rice never publicly revealed the family tragedy in his past. He married twice more.
A comment on another site: P.J. Clark wrote on Feb 14, 2008 – Edgar Rice lived in Donovan Illinois at the time with his wife and children. They were buried in The Praire Dell Cemetery just west of the town of Iroquois. The father and family were buried in The Beaver Cemetery just across the road from their farm. Charles and his family are in unmarked graves. I’ve been to the farm and I think it is in Illinois.
Based on these articles, it seems that the Rice family was likely the one from my mom’s story. Beaver Cemetery (in fact the one where my mom and her cronies are buried) is 1/2 mile east and 1 mile north of our house. It is only 1 mile from the Indiana border, and a household there could easily have family in both states, causing a little confusion over whether the Rices lived in Donovan or Morocco townships.
It also seems that Morocco put their one famous resident, major league baseball player Edgar “Sam” Rice, on the Welcome to Morocco sign along with a TORNADO which had famously killed his whole family and which he’d been trying ever since to forget. That’s really kinda jerky. Anyway, there are more gruesome details here http://tinyurl.com/58trna that may shed some light on why my mom always ran to put on clean underwear in a tornado warning.