MARCH, 1919. MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW. 167
TORNADO AT PORTER, OKLAHOMA, MABCH 16, 1919.
Ry J. A. REIHLE.
[Dated ;\wnlogical Etallon, Rroken Arrow, Okla., Mar. 25, 1919.1
On March 15, IOIO, a t 4:O7 p. m., a tornado struvk Porter, Okln., a t.0n-n of SO0 populntion in t,he nort,lieast part of the State, 1' miles iiorthwests of Muskogee. leauing c.onip1et.e dest.ruction in a nwrow path arross the tOWJ1.
The path of the storm was from sout.liwest. to nort,hcast,, . as shown by the acconi anying map, figure 1 ; its width
was about, 200 feet a,iic P its lengt,li inside the t.own OJW-
fourt(1i mile. The clay wns w-ltrm : intcrnii t h i t showers premiled bhrou hout the aft,ernoon, and t,he sun shone for a hricf periof 15 minutes before t,lw storm broke. At Broken ilrrow Aerological Stat,ion, 35 miles northwest of Porter,
a pilot balloon flight was made a t 3 1. ni.! which shows
froin 14 meters er second a t t.he surface t.0 25 niet,ers
per secoiid (56 miyes per hour) at 500 and 751) niet,ers aloft. A black funnel cloud was seen nppronching from t.lie soutliwest, or south-southw-est. The f uiincl zigzagged
back and fort.11 HS it. nppronchetl, svnietimes touching and ngain receding from the eart,li. The rottr ~(V R S heard for
two or three minut,es hfore the storni renclietl the town: the noise of its passing wa.s likened t.o a.11 explosion. It
was acconipnriied by 1i.ght~11ing and t,liunder nud a. heavy downpour of rain 1ast.ing fkc minutes. There is untloubterl evicltwre of a counterclockwise whirl. Howewr, t,liere is no sign of a rct,rnpxilc? niot.ion
of tdie air on t.he left. side, us sliown by tl6hris. t.rees, atnd
poles : these lean inwa.rd nearly a,t right, angles t.o the direction of the pst,h of t.hc storm, wliilc t,rces nnil polrs
on t.he right, side arc hcnt forwwd almostn p:milLl wit.h the et,h of the storm. T!e storm did not, pass t,hrnugh t,hc ccnt,er of town, hut a.long t.he edge, wliicli was mostly a. thickly set.t.lecl Nepo tlist,rict. Two persons, hot.11 Negroes, were killed nnrl a score or more injured 1 1 ~ flyiiig cl6hris. The propcrty loss
is est.imated a t $non,ooo. 11 cot,ton gin, t,he Missouri, Kans~s k Tesas Rai1wa.y depot, six business houses, 35
cottages, a church a.nc1 sc1ioollinus;c were dcstroycd, Sis
horses and several dogs were killed, and t,he ground was literauy strewn with fowls. The first buildings demolished were t,hose a t t.he cotton gin of Mr. C. C. Hultqnist (Nos. 1, 3, 3, fig. 1.1. Nothing was left of the seed house, No. 1 , while t.he storage house, No. 3, was only slightly chmnged. Corrugated iron used in these buildings was scnt,terecl arrow t,own and for a
mile or more over the country to the uort.lieast,. Both ends of t.he Missouri, Kans:w & Tesas passenger and freight depot N-ere blown out. and a hos car standing on the siding on the south side was overturned against the building. It was nearly kdii time and the waiting room was filled with people. Among these wns a party of teachers and pupils who had been att,ending a school contest a t the place. When the wds were carried away these peo le, as well as the ticket agent? were sprayed with
Just across the Missouri, Kansas k Tesas tracks along Main Street begins the business sect,ioii of the town, with
a solid row of buildings on the west side of the st,reeb. The first building was a frnnie structure housing the gas
distributing ~tat~ioa. The bujldiiig (No. 6) was ent,irely removed, the meters carried awa.y, aiid one of t,he gas pipes supplying the stricken area was twist,ed and closed, thus averting a fire which might, otherwise have followecl. Nos. 7, S, and 9 were, respect,ively, general store of Mr. Henry Allen, garage, and pestnurant of Mr. Ha.ys. All
three buildings were gutted, the front and back walls
'
that the wind was from the south, an !I varied in velocity
pieces of x ric.k and mortar, but. none was seriously injured.
being torn out and a heavy beam binding t.he three buildings together across the front was removed and rarriecl across the skeet. Messrs. Allen and Hays were in their respective places of business, but neit.her was scriously hurt. Farther down Main St,reet, sev+ plate glass window-s were hroken hy tlic e s dosive action of the air, and brick walls were damage& by heavy bodies thrown outside the vortex nf the storm.
I n the second sncl third blocks after leaving the inter- section of Main Street. and the railroad the storm wiped
FIG. 1.-Ma showing path nl tornado through l'orler,, Okla. 1,2,3. d, power, and storage houses of G. C. Hu1blust.h cotton gin. 4. Bowers and Brown elevator. 5. Missouri Iiamas b. Texas passenger nnd freight depot. 6. Gasdisthutin station. 7. Generalstore ofMr. Henry Allen. 8. Garage. 9. Rastaurant. 10. First National Bank. 11. Dunlap store. 12. Blacksmith shop. 13. Residenee of Yr. C. B. Harris. 14. Negro Baptist Church. 15. Neeo SchWlhOllSe.
out nearly all the houses in the Negro district. Some
25 houses were demolished, and it seems miraculous that the occupants, niany of whom were in the houses a t the time, escaped alive. I n a number of cases i t is seen that the walls burst outward, the roof lying flat on the ground aiici the ceiling lyin on it, both intact and upside down. blacksmith
shop, Ne o Baptist Church, and egro sc oolhouse, all destroyef The framework of the roof of the church was deposited about 75 feet north of where the church had stood (see fi . 2).
buildings undamaged except that tbe windQw8 were
i s ;
Nos. 13, 14, anc K 15 were, res ectivel
East of t f e path of the storm stand a few scattered
M. W. R.. March, 1919. [To face p. 167.
1
167-1
c
Fro. 2.-Looking east across the path of the storm. Roof'of /Negro Baptist Church, aU that remained of the building.
I
168 MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW.
blown out. Of these, No. 13 is the home Mr. of C. B. Harris (see fig; 3), who made his way out of the storm's path and into his house just in time to escape. No. 4 is
an elevator. This tall building standin so near the path
structivevelocitiesdid not extend a preciably farther from
Some freaks of the wind were reported. A farmer who had just left the store, started across the street when he saw the storm comin else to hold to he clutched the wind struck and the wagon. Then i$ broke from him and went flying
of the storm and remaining undamage % shows that de-
the center at an altitude of 50 to 75 P eet than at the ground.
u
' FIG I -Weathex ma Mar. 15 1915.7 rn 90th meridian time. Number 01 barbs on w i ~ arrows indk)es velo$tias in Jiauihrt eal le.
away in the air. The farmer waa not injured. Near t5e railroad station four teams of horses were tied. The tornado dipped over the first team and lifted the second and fourth. The first and third teams were unharmed. Leaving Porter the storm continued in a northeasterly direction, depositing dCbris icked up in Porter along its
farm buildings were destroyed in the next 4 or 5 miles.
The tornado described was one of many severe storms accompanying a cyclone central over the Great Plains on March 15. Some of these are briefly described in the accompanying account taken from the Tulsa (Okla.) Daily World, March 16, 1919:
Three persons are reported as killed, scores injured, and a vast amount of roperty damaged by tornadoes and cloudbursts. which struck towns in kansaa, Missouri, and Oklahoma late this afternoon.
"he town of Porter, Okla., 12 milee northwest of Muskogec, me
ath for several miles. .rp wo schoolhouses and some
DISCUSSION.
KANSAS CITY, Mo., March 15.
struck by a tornado which laid waste most of the business section. Three people me thought to have been killed and many injured. The place is said to he a pile of wreckage. A 4s-mile wind was reported horn Oklahoma City. At Atchieon, Kana.. a cloudburst in which 3 inches of water fell within an hour, filled the streets, flooded haaement,s and caused damage estilnat.ed a t $1 W .~o . A heavy winddorm whirh ewept t,hmugh Clinton. Mo., unroofed many houses i n the residence section and blew railmad cars from the track. Telephone and telegraph wires are down. Sweeping thrnugh northern Jackson and western At(-liison counties i n I<nnsas. a tornado wrerked n score of fiirniliouses. and injured B
number of people. Buildings on two hlnr-ks in t.he town of MIuscntah were drstroyed. -4 heavy r d n Iolhwed the wind here. dl1 rainfall remrds fur the month of itlmcli were Imken at- Topeka when a prrtripitat,ion of 3.SS inches wuia recorded. Small streanis ent,ering t.he kaw are expected to go out of their b~nks before mnming. Report.8 rereired from western J<ansasindicat,e that a heairy rainfall was general throughout the Kaw Valley. Hail was report,cd i n a few places.
The weather niap of the evening of March 15 (about, 6:15 p. ni. local time) is reproduced as figure 4. At this time, two hours after tlie occurrence of the tornado, there \\-as a northwest wind of 36 miles-an hour and a
temperature of 45' F. a t Wichita, f0ll0~7111~ a niasiniuni velocity of ss miles an hour, while at ORla1ionia city there was a strong south wind of 36 miles an hour and R
temperature of T O O F. It seems probilble that sonie of the cold wind which was blowing a t the surface in central and western Kansas overran the strong warni wind in enst,ern Oklahoma, and hy the highly unstable and turbulent c.ondition thereby produced c.aused the whirl a t Porter and the escessiwly strong convection which made the intense storms a t ninny other points in this region.-(?. F. Brooka.
THE STOBM OF MABCH 16,1919, AT FORT SMITH, ABK.
A destructive thunderstomi, attended by violent wind gusts of 76 or more iiles an hour, occurred a few niinutcs
Lightning was observed to the west and southwest of the station about 10:30 p. in. of the 15th. Thunder bcgan a t 11 :3S 1). 111. and continued at intervds until
1 :33 a. ni. of the lGth. At 13:OT a. 111. the wind at,tnined an extreme of 76 miles an hour and tt 5-minute maxiinuni of 5s miles an hour; but it blew in violent gusts that probaldly nionientarily esceeded these fiwres, es ecially
station. The storm moved from the southwest to the nortbeast, the atli of greatest violence roughly following the banks of t E e Arkansas River, through the northern part of the city, theilcc through Van Buren and to Alma. The path was about 1 mile wide in Fort Smith, but had narrowed to about, a half mile whenit passed through Van Buren. Tlic storm showed none of the chttrac.toristics of tornadic action, and its attendant display of lightning and thunder was estremdy mild.
By LEON J. GUTHRIE, Meteorologist..
after midnight of 8 arch 15.
a t points about 1 mile north of the fieather % ureau
In tlie northern part of Fort Smith and in Van Buren the damage to roofs, windows, c.himne.p, wires, truck crops, and small f r d buildings totaled in the neighbor
The greatest loss was suffered by the Berry-Beall Dry Goo& Co., a wholesale house, whose entire stock, v s h d at $500,000, was materially dainaged. The roof
of the store was blown off, and the pipes connecting the building with a large water tank were broken. The contents of the tank were emptied into the building from the top floor, drenching the entire stock. The daxnaae to the dry good.. waa approximately
$200,000, ma&g a total loss of $225,000 caused by the storm. Two ersons are known to have suffered slight
hood of $35,000.
injuries, but t E ere WM uo loss of life.