Weather Stories About Coal County, Oklahoma
OWL, I.T. HIT BY
TORNADO
-----------------
MANY PEOPLE WERE INJURED
FOUR OF WHOM IT IS SAID
FATALLY
BUSINESS HOUSES
DESTROYED
----------------
WIND STRUCK THE
TOWN
FULLY AND SWEPT ALL BEFORE IT
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Many Children Were
Injured During the Afternoon Session of School In the
Collapse of the
Building
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Special
to The Oklahoman
Owl, I.T. May 5--A
tornado which
struck here at 2:20 this afternoon resulted in the injury of
fourteen people, four fatally. Those injured were
all in the school house
in which school was being
held. Professor Blackburn and three children
were
seriously injured. Seven business buildings were badly damanged
and fifty dwellings, lifted from their foundations.
The only church in the
town was completely
destroyed. It is thought the damage will amount to
about $50,000. As soon as telegraphic connection
could be had, physicians
were ordered from Coalgate to the
scene and the injured were cared
for.
The storm came from a southwesterly
direction and struck the
town fully. The path
covered by the storm was about 700 feet wide and
made
a clean sweep. Limbs of large trees were deposited all over the town,
and many of the injuries occurred from flying
debris. The afternoon
passenger train on the Katy,
bound for Oklahoma City, was standing on
the track
when the storm struck. No damage resulted to railroad
property. People were frantic during the terrible
wind, and crowds ran
from one portion of the town to
the other, apparently not knowing where
they were going,
having been driven from their homes.
J.B. Dickerson of Davis, I.T.,
reached the city last evening and to an Oklahoman reporter described the tornado
at Owl, which he witnessed from a Rock Island Trail. "As we were
approaching the station," he said, "someone called out that a tornado was
approaching from the southwest. The engine crew probably saw the
approaching storm for the train was stopped on the edge of the prairie outside
the town limits and all the people on the train rushed out to gaze upon one of
nature's most terrifying phenomenn. The tornado was approaching from the
southwest and travelling with the speed of a railway train.
"The cloud
was funnel shaped," presenting the form of an inverted cone from four to six
hundred feet in diameter at the point of connection with the earth's
surgace. Within this might maelstrom could be seen oak trees and all kinds
of debris whipping about like blades of grass in a summer whirlwind and
constantly mounting upward and falling outside the mighty whirl. When
first seen by us at a distance of two miles its awful roar could be plainly
heard, much resembling the sound of a railroad train crossing a trestle
bridge.
"Passing through a tract of oak wood, through which it mowed a
broad path, the tornado moved across the valley and hit the hills where, pausing
like an enraged lion, it ground upon the trees and rocks, raing in majestic
rage, then passing over the hilltops and out of vision. We could not see
the town when enveloped by the tornado, but the spectacle was appalling
when the death-dealing storm has passed. Six business house and about
twenty residences and a school house had been demolished. We learned that
in the school house one man and a little girl were killed and about twenty
others injured.
"The railway track was not damaged where the tornado had
passed over it, but for a distance of seven hundred feet the track was strewn
with oak trees which had to be cut away bvefore the train could
proceed.
Source: The Oklahoman Archives: Story printed May 6,
1905 on the Front Page
Transcribed by Linda Craig
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