A deadly night of tornadoes across northern Texas and southern Oklahoma struck on April 9, 1947 as one supercell thunderstorm produced six twisters along a 221 mile corridor.
About 5:45 p.m., a tornado touched down White Deer, Texas. The tornado derailed twenty-one cars of a Santa Fe freight train. It grazed the towns of Pampa and Miami, Texas. Moving along the Santa Fe line, the tornado trained its sights on Glazier, Texas. Eight people perished in the tiny town where only one building was left standing.
Next in the path of the deadly storm was Higgins, TX, where twenty-four people were killed. The storm raced into Oklahoma, where it fell with hellish fury on the town of Shattuck, leaving twenty people dead there.
The death-dealing funnel was saving its greatest wrath for the town of Woodward, OK, which lay unwittingly in its path. As the tornado approached Woodward, it had swelled in size to two miles wide and was moving at up to 70 mph. The twister leveled one-third of the town, killing 116 people. This made it the deadliest tornado ever in the history of Oklahoma.
The devastation was followed by a major fire. The Woodward tornado is one of the widest in U.S. history, and indeed may be the widest because it is difficult to determine the extent of the damage path over the sparsely populated area. A total of 169 people were killed and 980 injured on the tragic night.
