The Weather Notebook: Big Train Ran Next Door

Big Train Ran Next Door
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Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow and today on The Weather Notebook, commentator David Clark recalls a tale of his mother surviving a tornado in the 1920's:

"In the mid 1920's, my mother was living in Cordele, Georgia. She was in the second grade. One day, the sky looked nasty and mean.

Tornado tearing up a farm field. NOAA Photo Library

Church bells began to ring. A man burst in the schoolroom and said a tornado was approaching.

The teacher told the children to get down under their desks. Momma said they were too scared to cry. The teacher didn't know else to do, so with a trembling voice she led them in the Lord's Prayer over and over again.

Outside was the sound of a huge train rolling over the whole world. Tin roofs torn to pieces banged down the street. Exploding houses jolted the prayer of the teacher and the children.

Finally, it was over. The schoolhouse had been spared. The children peeked out from under their desks, wondering if they were still alive. The teacher let them all go home.

Houses all around were flattened. Uprooted trees smashed unlucky automobiles.

Mama said she ran home as fast as she could. She remembers screaming for her Mom and Dad, believing they were both crushed underneath the weight of the wind.

She turned the last corner. Their next door neighbor's house was gone.

She was finally home. And there, on the porch, stood her Mom and Dad, looking in awe at a broom straw which had been driven by the force of the tornado into the post by the steps of the untouched house."

David Clark is a storyteller from Cochran, GA. The Weather Notebook is underwritten by Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive, with major support provided by the National Science Foundation.

Tornado cloud as seen over the buildings of an American city. In: "The New Air World", Willis Luther Moore, 1922.. Figure 17, p. 144.

Purchase David Clark's CD "Kindly Curious"
'Memories are made up of events and pictures of life preserved in stories. These stories tell us about life in a way that no book, photogragh, or movie ever can, for they allow us to involve our own imaginations in the creation of the story as we hear it.' -David Clark