And Hell Followed With It: Life and Death in a Kansas Tornado

by Bonar Menninger

  Responsibility for meteorological studies and forecasting shifted from the Army to the Department of Agriculture in 1890 with the creation of the United States Weather Bureau. But instead of prompting a reexamination of the tornado forecasting ban, the change effectively codified the prohibition as part of bureau doctrine. In 1899, Cleveland Abbe, influential editor of the American Meteorological Society’s Monthly Weather Review, asserted that given the minimal risk of individuals actually encountering a tornado, the government had “no right to issue numerous erroneous alarms. The stoppage of business and the unnecessary fright would in its summation during a year be worse than the storms themselves.” Abbe absurdly went on to claim that “there is no material advantage to be derived from any, even the most perfect, system of forewarnings and attempts at protection,” given the total and absolute destruction caused by a tornado.24

  Tragically, this head-in-the-sand approach would stand as official government policy for the next 60 years. It is true that tornado forecasting was — and remains — extremely tricky and that early in the century, the tools we take for granted today (computers, radar and weather balloon soundings, to name a few) didn’t exist. And Finley didn’t help his cause by exaggerating his successes; critics argued that Finley’s forecasting prowess was a statistical mirage.25 Nonetheless, it now seems unconscionable that a greater effort wasn’t made to build on his pioneering work. Consigned to the dustbin of science by the weather bureaucracy and leading meteorologists, tornado research, reporting and prediction effectively ground to a halt.26

  Tornadoes, however, observed no such moratorium and continued to visit death and destruction on farms, towns and cities across the country. In 1899, the same year Abbe claimed that warnings were worthless, a tornado formed over Lake St. Croix, Wisconsin, and moved 15 miles northeast toward New Richmond. The Gollmar Brothers Circus was in town and hundreds of people were caught in the open when the twister struck. Virtually the entire community was destroyed; 117 people were killed and about 200 were injured.27

  Nine years later, multiple tornadoes swept across Louisiana and Mississippi and killed more than 300. On June 5, 1916, 18 killer tornadoes struck Arkansas. The outbreak remains the record for the most killer storms in a single state on a single day. In 1920, 11 tornadoes killed at least 20 people each.28 And on March 18, 1925, the worst tornado disaster in U.S. history unfolded near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. A twister one mile wide doing 60-plus miles an hour gouged a 219-mile path of destruction across portions of Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.29 The tornado was on the ground for an unheard-of three and a half hours30 and struck at least 19 communities, wiping four entirely off the map. A total of 695 people died that day, including 69 students in nine schools.31

  The annual assault continued through the 1930s. Over two days in April 1936, for example, separate tornadoes in Tupelo, Mississippi, and Gainesville, Georgia, killed 216 and 203 people, respectively.32

  Despite the grim toll tornadoes racked up through the early 20th century, it took World War II to finally spur the federal government to action. In 1940, the Weather Bureau began providing “severe local windstorm warnings’’ (a euphemism for tornadoes) to munitions plants and military airfields in tornado-prone areas. The facilities themselves established networks of spotters, sometimes armed with two-way radios, to provide direct warning when destructive storms were imminent. The system worked well, and after the war some communities in Kansas and elsewhere continued to operate spotter networks.33

  Yet even with the initiative’s success, the Weather Bureau remained unwilling to actively pursue anything more than isolated and experimental prediction and warning efforts. Francis W. Reichelderfer, chief of the Weather Bureau, reiterated the prohibition against tornado forecasting in 1943. He apparently was concerned that the agency would look bad if tornadoes were forecast but did not occur. The bureau also believed that business and industry would suffer if citizens changed their behavior due to fears about the weather.34

  Fortunately, the Weather Bureau’s hand was about to be forced by two young Air Force officers in Oklahoma. Capt. Robert C. Miller, 28, was a trained meteorologist who had served as a weather officer in Dutch New Guinea during the war. Maj. Ernest J. Fawbush, 33, was an expert on Alaskan weather and the commanding officer of the Weather Station at Tinker Air Force Base outside Oklahoma City.35 In early March of 1948, Miller was assigned to Fawbush’s command. Tinker, named for an Oklahoma bomber pilot lost in the war, was the nation’s largest aircraft repair and maintenance depot. Approximately 2,000 planes were stored at the base, including numerous mothballed B-29 bombers and P-47 fighters.36

  Miller was a California native with no previous experience observing or predicting Midwestern weather. He was working the late shift on the evening of March 20. Studying the charts, Miller concluded that aside from gusty winds, the night would be uneventful. But shortly after 9:00 p.m., weather stations to the southwest began reporting thunderstorms moving toward the base. Miller and a co-worker confirmed the fast-moving storms on radar and issued a high-wind warning for the base, although it came too late to allow for aircraft to be secured. At 9:52 p.m., a chilling message came in from Will Rogers Airport, seven miles west-southwest of the base. The airport reported heavy thunderstorms, wind gusts of up to 92 miles per hour and a “TORNADO SOUTH ON GROUND MOVING NE.”37

  Miller watched dumbstruck as an enormous funnel materialized through the lightning flashes and moved diagonally across the base. When it was over, numerous buildings were wrecked, 50 planes were destroyed and 50 more were damaged. The property loss exceeded $10 million.38 Six people were injured, including air traffic controllers struck by flying glass when the windows in the tower blew out.39

  Five Air Force generals flew in from Washington, D.C., the next morning to assess the damage and investigate the circumstances surrounding the storm. Fawbush and Miller were called on the carpet. According to Miller, the generals’ questions were “well put, concise and fair.” Fawbush, he said, described the difficulty involved in forecasting tornadoes and the resulting reluctance of weather services to issue public warnings. The generals concluded that the storm was an act of God and could not have been forecast. Nonetheless, they urged the meteorologists to try to find ways to warn the public about impending severe weather.40

  Attending the meeting was General Fred S. “Fritz” Borum, the commanding general of the Oklahoma City Air Materiel Area. Borum had a reputation as an innovator. Afterward, he pushed Fawbush to follow up on the generals’ suggestion and investigate the feasibility of forecasting tornado-producing storms.

  “Major Fawbush had been interested for some years in such storms and I had become ‘most interested’ overnight,’’’ Miller wrote years later in an unpublished manuscript. “I was most fortunate in being selected to aid in the investigations.”

  For nearly three days straight, Fawbush and Miller pored over every tornado-related document they could lay their hands on. They studied charts and maps and compared data points and patterns associated with previous tornadic thunderstorms, including barometric pressure, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction. By the time they were finished, the two had developed a checklist of six conditions they believed needed to be present for tornadoes to develop.41

  The next day, while studying the morning charts, the meteorologists were alarmed to see that the weather patterns of March 25 bore a striking resemblance to conditions present on the morning of March 20, the day the tornado had hit the base. General Borum was alerted, and after hearing the weathermen’s assessment, he asked if they intended to issue a tornado forecast for Tinker. Fawbush and Miller demurred. Borum consequently suggested that they issue a forecast for heavy thunderstorms.

  The day wore on and storms began to gather. A squall line 100 miles long had formed about 60 miles northwest of the base and was moving toward Tinker at 27 miles an hour. Again Borum was notified, and again the general put the question to the weathermen: Were they going
to issue a tornado forecast or not? According to Miller, Borum pointedly noted that “if you really believe this situation is very similar to the one last week, it seems logical to issue a tornado forecast.”

  Fawbush and Miller stalled. They pointed out the infinitesimal likelihood of two tornadoes hitting the same location in such a short period of time. They added that no one in modern times had ever issued a site-specific, operational tornado forecast. But Borum was insistent.

  “You are about to set a precedent,’’ Borum responded.42

  And so it was that the historic warning, for the 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. time frame, went out at 2:50 p.m. on March 25, 1948. Borum immediately began implementing a tornado safety plan he’d developed, which included hangaring aircraft, securing loose objects, diverting incoming air traffic and moving base personnel to safe areas.

  Fawbush and Miller, meanwhile, lamented their predicament, given the near-impossibility of another tornado hitting the base. “I could see it now, a sure ‘bust’ and plenty of flack thereafter,” Miller wrote. “I wondered how I would manage as a civilian, perhaps as an elevator operator. It seemed improbable that anyone would employ, as a weather forecaster, an idiot who issued a tornado forecast for a precise location.”

  His concern seemed justified. As the squall line moved closer, it became clear that the storm didn’t pack nearly the punch of the one five days earlier. This time, the weather personnel at Will Rogers Airport reported a light thunderstorm with 26-mile-an-hour winds and pea-size hail.

  “That did it,’’ Miller wrote. “I abandoned ship, leaving a grim Major Fawbush to go down with the vessel.”

  From his home nearby, a depressed Miller watched the storm come in until rain obscured his view. A little while later, he turned on the radio and was annoyed to hear an “urgent news bulletin” about a “destructive tornado at Tinker Field.”

  “Good grief,’’ Miller recalled. “I thought, ‘They’re still talking about last week’s tornado’—but why break into the news?”

  Miller tried to phone the base but the lines were dead. Jumping into his car, he sped toward the weather station with a “strange, unbelieving excitement rising.’’ Miller arrived at Tinker to find destruction everywhere and emergency crews scrambling to restore power and clear the runways. At the weather station, a “jubilant” Major Fawbush described how a funnel had formed and dropped to the ground as the line of thunderstorms passed over the airfield. The twister, which struck at 5:58 p.m., lasted just three or four minutes. Only one person was slightly injured, but 84 B-29s and P-47s were damaged and 35 were wrecked beyond repair.43 The property damage totaled $6 million, $4 million less than the previous storm.

  “General Borum’s Tornado Disaster Plan had been just as successful as the first operational tornado forecast,’’ Miller wrote. “We became instant heroes and, in my case, the rest of my life would be intimately associated with tornadoes and severe thunderstorms.”

  Tornado prediction evolved quickly from this auspicious beginning. Fawbush and Miller continued to hone their forecast methodology and continued to score successes. In the 14 months ending in May 1950, the duo accurately predicted tornadoes in 31 of 34 separate warnings issued for areas of Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama and Georgia.44 Unfortunately, the warnings were limited to military bases. But civilians soon caught on to the forecasts, and news of the alerts would spread rapidly by word of mouth in the communities around military facilities.

  Astonishingly, despite Miller and Fawbush’s success, the Weather Bureau continued to cling to its prohibition against tornado prediction. Reichelderfer, the director, remained convinced that tornadoes were too difficult to forecast, that erroneous predictions would reflect poorly on the bureau and that the general public would panic if the bureau began issuing warnings.45 But by 1952, public pressure on the agency had reached a fever pitch. Radio stations in Oklahoma routinely broadcast the leaked Air Force warnings, and the media repeatedly castigated the bureau for its timid stance. The state’s congressional representatives eventually jumped into the fray and urged the Weather Bureau office in Oklahoma City to cooperate with Fawbush and Miller’s newly created Severe Weather Warning Center.46

  The bureau finally relented in the face of withering criticism and began issuing its own tornado predictions in March of 1952. The forecasts proved reasonably effective, and by 1954, the Weather Bureau had established a Severe Local Storms Forecast Center in Kansas City to focus exclusively on tornado forecasting. Thus ended the bureau’s long and disgraceful era of ignoring the dangers posed by tornadoes and leaving at-risk citizens to their own devices. Before long, local Weather Bureau officials up and down Tornado Alley were scrambling to make up for lost time, working to devise systems to warn the public and boost awareness of tornado safety.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Legend of Burnett’s Mound

  Every community has its legends and Topeka, Kansas, in 1966 was no different. The most potent of these involved Burnett’s Mound, the high hill on the southwest edge of the city. The story surrounding the hill, tornadoes and the Indian chief for whom the mound was named drifted down through the decades to cast a long shadow over the events of June 8, 1966.

  This particular legend had its origins in the collision of cultures that marked westward expansion in America. As much as any state, Kansas helped cement the heroic saga of the West in the collective memory of the American people. Through the 19th century, explorers, trappers, buffalo hunters, mule skinners, soldiers, sodbusters, pioneer women, gunslingers, railroad builders, cowboys and lawmen all turned in larger-than-life performances on the dangerous and unforgiving stage of Kansas. The power of their life-and-death drama lingers still. And it’s a true tale, as far as it goes.

  But there was always another side to the story.

  Through Indian eyes, white encroachment was a nightmare of sickness, death, humiliation and unrelenting land grabs that squeezed tribes onto ever-smaller parcels of inferior ground, often hundreds or even thousands of miles from their ancestral homes. At no place in the mid-19th century was the impact of these dislocations more evident than in Kansas Territory and future Oklahoma to the south. In Kansas, the catastrophe was twofold: Not only were native civilizations put to flight by advancing whites, but the territory also served in the early days as a dumping ground for entire indigenous populations run out of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois.

  First contact between whites and Native Americans in Kansas involved the Spanish, who came out of the Southwest in search of Quivira, one of seven mythical cities of gold supposedly located somewhere north and east of Tiguex, or modern-day Albuquerque. An ambitious colonial governor named Don Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led a party of conquistadors north in the spring of 1541 to find the fabled metropolis. They arrived on the grasslands of central Kansas in late June. But they didn’t find Quivira, gold or even rumors of gold. Instead, they discovered the Wichita nation, a 4,000-strong tribe of farmers and hunters who had lived in earthen huts along the Arkansas River and its tributaries for at least 500 years.47

  The French came next, pushing down from Canada to establish trading relationships with the native people of eastern Kansas, primarily the Pawnee, the Osage and the Kansa. The Kansa, whose name meant “People of the South Wind,” were buffalo hunters and sustenance farmers who’d drifted in from the east in prehistoric times. In 1702, a French official put the Kansa population at about 5,000.48 The French plied the tribes with gifts and trade goods: blankets, flour, clothing, weapons, gunpowder and brandy. The Indians, in turn, provided the French with furs and slaves, the latter mainly Comanches and Plains Apaches taken in western Kansas.49

  The years rolled on, the bonds of mutual dependency drew tighter and the slow asphyxiation of Native American society advanced. Ruin for the Indians was accelerated by the diseases carried by the Europeans. With no natural immunity, tribes were ravaged by influenza, cholera, measles, whooping cough and smallpox. Exposure only increased after France sold the Loui
siana Territory to the newly independent United States in 1803.

  As Americans trickled and then flowed into the plains, Kansas would become a central battleground in the grinding conflict with the Plains Indians. Yet it was an earlier struggle between Native Americans and whites — this one played out along a now-long-forgotten Western frontier — that gave rise to the most enduring legend associated with Topeka and the tragedy of June 8, 1966.

  For decades, the Algonquin or Woodland nations of the Great Lakes region — the Chippewa, Ottawa, Huron, Potawatomi, Winnebago, Kickapoo, Fox, Sac and Illinois — battled tenaciously to hold their ancestral homelands against the advancing tide of white settlers. To thwart the Americans, or “Long Knives,” as they called them, the Indians aligned first with the French and then with the British. One of the Algonquin tribes, the Potawatomis, was particularly determined to resist white incursion. The Potawatomis lived throughout what was then known as the Old Northwest, in an area that would become southern Michigan, eastern Wisconsin, northern Illinois and Indiana. At their peak, they were perhaps 6,000 strong.50 They were hunters, fishermen and farmers, and they organized themselves in loose confederations in which chiefs led more by consensus than decree.51 With shaved heads and painted faces, the Potawatomis were ferocious in battle.

  But the Americans were relentless and more numerous. After it became clear that the white world was rapidly overtaking the Algonquin peoples, a Shawnee prophet, Tenskwatawa, and his militarily minded brother, Tecumseh, worked to unify the often-feuding tribes east of the Mississippi into a single hammer that could crush the Americans once and for all. Thus, when the United States again went to war with the British in the War of 1812, Tecumseh seized the opportunity to align with the English and drive the Americans from Native lands. Sixty years before Sitting Bull united the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne to defeat Custer at the Little Bighorn River, another charismatic Indian leader rallied his peoples for a final stand.