Waco Tornado 1
Waco Tornado Script for KWBU/NPR
Script for KWBU-FM and Texas NPR Stations
By Hans Christianson
HOST (Mary Landon Darden)
There is an old Native American legend that claims that Waco, Texas is immune to tornadoes. Apparently, the Wacoan Indians selected the area for a settlement because it was situated in a geological recess surrounded by hills and bluffs.
It's no surprise that on Monday, May 11, 1953, most people in Waco didn't pay much attention to a tornado warning from the National Weather Service. Tornadoes just didn't happen in Waco ... or so everyone thought.
But this day was different, as Austin freelance writer Hans Christianson discovered as he researched the event that changed Waco forever.
WRITER (Hans Christianson)
The Waco Tornado was unlike anything that had ever happened to the city before. Nearly 1/3 of a mile wide, the F-5 rated twister produced winds up to 260 mph. The results were catastrophic. 114 people were killed, 600 were injured with survivors trapped under the wreckage for up to 14 hours in some cases. 2,000 vehicles and 1,000 homes and businesses were damaged along with 600 more completed destroyed. The final damage bill … around $50 million. Even today, it stands as the 10th deadliest tornado in the history of the United States.
We have all heard about the Waco tornado as the most catastrophic natural event in the Waco area, but few of us have heard from eye witnesses about what it was like to experience such an event. What was it like for the people trapped under the rubble? Can you tell us about any of the survivors – what it was like to suddenly find themselves in the middle of an F-5 tornado??
One of the survivors was teenager Donald Hansard. A senior at La Vega High School in nearby Bellmead, he and close friend Kay Sharbutt were heading downtown to shoot some pool. They noticed the overcast sky as they drove to the Torrence Recreation Center, but they didn't pay much attention to it. After all, the boys knew the Indian legend concerning tornadoes in Waco.
Donald and Kay arrived at the center around 3:30 p.m. Kay parked the car in a nearby alley and the boys went inside. The center featured a pool hall downstairs and a dominoes hall upstairs. While they played several games of pool, the weather outside became worse. The air turned muggy and still, while the clouds grew darker and darker. Neither boy paid any attention when it started to storm, or even when the lights began to flicker and eventually went out completely. They kept playing between flashes of lightning.
Even though several of the older patrons were trying to find cover underneath tables, the boys continued to joke and talk while they traded shots. Donald had just finished complimenting Kay on a particularly lucky shot when he moved around the table — a move that saved his life. Before he knew it, the ceiling above him collapsed. One end of a floor joist landed on the table and the other end pinned his foot. Kay, who was standing nearby, was not as lucky. That same joist crushed his head, killing the soon-to-be high school graduate and football star.
Did Donald realize what had happened? What was he thinking about as he lay trapped underneath the debris?
No. Donald initially thought that a bomb had gone off. The tornado had knocked down the building along with the neighboring five-story Dennis Building. He particularly remembered the screams from other nearby victims. He recalled in a 1980 interview,
“People were cursing… and didn't know what was wrong. A lot of people were begging for their mother and it kind of struck me as funny that these big, tough guys, they wanted to talk to their mother.”
Trapped underneath the ceiling, Donald felt something sticky … blood. His clothes were also soaked from the water gushing out of the busted water lines. He found a pool cue and began tapping on the ceiling. Soon, he heard the commotion and cries from people above him. Many of the people had already begun to try to dig through the rubble in search of survivors.
Who finally rescued Donald and how long did it take for rescuers to reach him?
Somewhere close to nine o'clock that evening, the National Guard cut a hole through the ceiling and found Donald. A cotton gloved hand belonging to guardsman Claude Kincannon reached down into the hole. Donald took hold with both of his hands and Claude explained about the tornado that had hit downtown earlier. It took another three hours before they were able to get Donald out from the wreckage. The guardsmen had to use jacks to lift the floor joists. They also had to move several dead bodies out of the way first, including his friend Kay.
Finally free of his captivity, Donald was taken to Providence Hospital. His injuries turned out to be relatively minor … a fractured hip, a bruised foot and a toe tip that remained dead from the injury. He didn't learn about Kay's death until three days later. In all, 14 people died in the Torrence Recreation Center that day.
Obviously, there were attempts to make order of the chaos and we know that some people did manage some success with those efforts. Since there had never been a tornado in the Waco area and apparently none were expected, how was this rescue effort ultimately organized and how did word of the disaster ultimately reach the public?
It wasn’t easy. There was a lot of initial confusion. People were wandering around in a daze. Others began to try to search through the debris for survivors. And a few started taking photos, documenting the destruction. But there was no clear organization in the beginning. The biggest reason for the confusion is that no one really knew what had happened. But thanks to George Hutson, local manager of Southwestern Bell, the greater Waco community and the rest of the United States quickly learned about the disaster.
George had been sitting in his downtown office talking long distance to a colleague in Beaumont when the wind began to pick up. Since the office didn't have any air conditioning, the windows were open and George could feel the wind being sucked outside. He got off the phone and went down to the first floor. Even though it was only late afternoon, it was already dark outside …almost too dark to see anything. But George saw something that signaled this wasn't going to be an ordinary storm … across the street, the wind knocked a billboard loose and blew it into the nearby Safeway sign.
It was around 4:50 p.m. when George decided to lock the front door to the building. A few people had straggled in looking for shelter. They were soaked from the rain and wind. He had locked the door when he heard someone beating frantically on it. He opened the door again and a man ducked inside. “The whole town is blowing apart,” the man announced.
How did George respond to the news? Did he have any doubtsabout what he was hearing?
He was about to dismiss the man and his story, when he noticed a Shriner pin on the man's shirt. Being a Shriner himself, he listened to him. “The whole town is exploding and blowing away,” the man told him. George didn't waste any time. He went upstairs, grabbed a telephone test set and contacted the local radio stations. He instructed them to air an appeal for people not to use their phones except in an emergency. The automated dial system had locked up because too many people were trying to call out at the same time. Waco had only switched over from the old operator system to the new dialing system four years earlier, in 1949.
After the appeal was sent out, George and district manager Justin Hoy made their way outside through the punishing wind and rain to run across the street to the company's mobile-equipped telephone car. They drove around surveying the damage. George described the area as appearing similar to a bomb explosion from World War II. It was difficult driving because of the damage and debris. A police officer instructed them to leave the area, but George informed him they had a mobile phone in the car. And, it was the only working phone in the downtown area.
Once they received permission to remain downtown, what was their plan?Where did they decide to go and what did they do first?
They parked the car on the sidewalk underneath the Amicable Building, which is now the present-day Alico Building. The building's clock had stopped at 4:40. This building had little damage due to its engineered design that allowed it to sway during the tornado. George called the chief operator at Southwestern Bell and instructed her to block all calls on the mobile channel. At this point, the car became the official communication center of the city.
George began to send out appeals for help … to the phone company, the military and the radio stations. To put some authority behind the calls, he used the name of McLennan County Sheriff, and good friend, C.C. Maxey. When Maxey showed up some time later and learned of the situation, he told George to keep using his name.
There was still little organization to the rescue efforts though … there was so much to do, but no one knew where to start. A local radio personality named Bob Walker from KWTX arrived with a loudspeaker attached to the top of his car. They used the loudspeaker to call out directions to the rescue workers. Eventually, additional help began to stream into the downtown area, including members of the Red Cross, Salvation Army, National Guard, Army and Air Force. Southwestern Bell also set up temporary telephone lines. In all, George Hutson ended up spending 72 hours straight underneath the broken Amicable clock, managing the communication effort.
Tell us about the medical response to the tornado. Obviously, a disaster of this magnitude would overwhelm almost any hospital. How where the injured transported to a medical facility and how did they manage to care for all of these people, many with very serious injuries?
Dr. Joe Jaworski and his wife were wrapping up the day's activities at his downtown practice when the tornado hit. Dr. Joe, as he was called by his patients, had noticed a storm was coming in when he looked out onto Austin Avenue through the back windows of his third-floor office. The clouds were dark and the air was still. He went to the front windows to get a better look. Without any warning, everything turned extremely dark and he couldn't see anything. After a minute or two, the darkness passed. Dr. Joe couldn't believe what he saw … the buildings across the street had either been destroyed or severely damaged.
He went back to the office to tell his wife what had happened. They decided to leave the building and go across the street to their suite at the Roosevelt Hotel. They weren't the only ones trying to leave the building; the inhabitants of the building's upper floors were frantically trying to get downstairs. With the electricity out and the elevators not working, everyone had to use the stairs. Armed with two small flashlights normally used for examining throats and ears, Dr. Joe and his wife tried to lead people safely down the dark stairwells.
It was chaotic. The windows had completely blown out and glass was everywhere. The building had also swayed during the tornado, but managed to stay standing. Since Dr. Joe was such a recognizable figure, people kept stopping him and asking for help. He mostly tried to calm people down and continued on his way. He knew that he would be needed at the hospital.
It took Dr. Joe and his wife about 30 minutes to get to their car. It had been parked in a nearby garage and had not sustained any damage. Traffic was slow moving out of downtown, but they finally made it to Hillcrest Hospital, one of the city's two hospitals. The hospital staff knew nothing about the tornado. They had heard about a storm hitting downtown, but no one had any idea of the damage or the loss of life.
Dr. Joe took charge of the situation. He knew that dozens of casualties would be flooding the hospital. He started by setting up an admitting area. Some of the victims would already be dead on arrival, so they would need to be moved to the morgue or funeral homes. The remaining victims would be classified into three categories: extreme injuries, major injuries and minor injuries. Additional doctors arrived at the hospital to help. Depending on their specialty, there were assigned to different stations, such as surgical, internal medicine or general medical.
How did the hospital administrators feel about Dr. Joe assuming control? Did anyone question his authority?
It was a natural fit for him to lead the effort. Dr. Joe had wartime experience dealing with multiple injury casualties. During World War II, he was director of surgical services at McCloskey General Hospital. He treated American soldiers who fought in the European theater. He also spent time in the Philippines. Everyone at Hillcrest agreed that he was the man for the job.
As the casualties arrived, Dr. Joe's wife and several nurses worked to record and organize the victims' personal information, so they could try to contact their families. Psychiatrists and psychologists also talked with victims who had not suffered physical injuries but had sustained emotional scarring.
The following morning, most of the initial treatment of patients had been completed. Dr. Joe and his colleagues had worked nonstop through the night. While the Waco medical community had not previously set out a plan for dealing with a citywide tragedy such as a tornado, they discovered that efforts at both hospitals — Hillcrest and Providence — had operated smoothly. Doctors and specialists had moved between the hospitals in order to avoid shortages in critical areas.
I imagine it was quite an undertaking to transport that many injured persons to the two hospitals. What can you tell us about that process?
In order to assist the fire and police department, the sheriff's department asked the local funeral homes to convert hearses into ambulances. One of the drivers was Mack Byron, an employee of Wilkerson-Hatch Funeral Home.
Mack took one of the hearses and drove downtown. He started out by helping a group of rescue workers search through the rubble at Chris's Cafe. After they found the remains of a young woman, her body was loaded into the hearse and Mack took her to Providence Hospital. Upon arrival, one of the doctors pronounced her dead. Mack drove her body back to the funeral home. He continued transporting bodies back and forth until 11 p.m. that evening. After that, he stayed at the funeral home assisting with the deceased.
Within a few hours 114 people lost their lives in a relatively small city. How did the hospitals and funeral homes deal with so many fatalities at once?
They all worked together. The first priority was identifying the victims. Wilkerson-Hatch created a temporary morgue in their garage. The Columbus Avenue Baptist Church also offered their Sunday School rooms as another temporary morgue. Most of the victims were identified by their clothing and jewelry.
Once a victim was identified, the funeral home worked with the family to make funeral arrangements, and even transporting the body to another funeral home if need be. Joint funerals were held throughout the next week with hourly services every day at funeral homes and churches.
One interesting observation was made following the tragedy… there were no natural deaths in Waco during the week following the tornado.
I know there were some particularly interesting stories about how business banded together to meet the needs of citizens in this crisis. Can you tell us a little about how the tornado affect the flow of downtown commerce and, in particular, how the banks worked together to restore services to the community?
A large number of businesses and restaurants were out of commission. But the bigger issue involved the three downtown banks. Since martial law was declared by the military, commerce was at a standstill. However, Community State Bank president J.D. Hudson Jr. had an idea. He invited the banks to operate out of Community's building.