Credit: NOAA
Last night, Timothy Ganger of Slidell, Louisiana was one of four awesome contestants on WeatherBrains episode #220 as we played Stump the Listeners.
Tim has a unique claim to fame: his family was standing next to the photographer who took this iconic photo from the Palm Sunday 1965 tornado outbreak across the Midwest.
He penned this account today for our readers…
We had returned home after a family dinner that Sunday afternoon. I as a young lad had fallen asleep on the sofa. The next thing I remember was a “super wedgies” as my Dad grabbed me by belt off of the sofa carrying me like a piece of luggage though the house to the basement.
My parents had notice a very “angry” blue-green sky early that afternoon as we drove home from my uncle’s house. My Mom was standing watch at a west bedroom window when she noticed the neighbor’s house (some half mile away) just vanish into “tooth picks” as she recalls.
Having gown up in the northern tip of “tornado ally” tornadoes were nothing new to my parents. But his one was the closest they had ever come to one.
The tornado that hit the neighbors turn slightly to the north as it went past our house. We later found a Cottonwood tree about 200 yards behind the house twisted off its stump. As Dad remembers the trunk of the tree was around 3 feet in diameter.
After the tornado passed we hop into the cars and pickups and started checking on neighbors. As be we can recall two or three times we had to take cover in a partly destroyed house as the next wave of thunderstorms or tornados passed.
We had driven one of the neighbors to the hospital (Mrs.. Miller) in Goshen. My Dad felt the need to check on his mom in Elkhart.
As we started the drive from Goshen to Elkhart my dad recognized the photographer parked along US 33. Being a small community on the sixty’s everyone knew everyone.
We racked brains for a long time last night and could not remember the photographer’s name I guess 45 years can do that.
The photographer had been out all day spotting tornadoes, he said he had lost count on how many tornadoes he had seen that day. As we (I should say my parents) were there talking we heard the familiar roar of another tornado. I turned around and seen what is now known as the famous “twin tornadoes”. We according to my dad were 2-3 miles away from it as it passed. As you look at the picture it moved to the right what is a northeast direction.
The destruction was horrific. After the tornadoes pass the road (which is US 33) we tried to continue on to Elkhart. We couldn’t travel far because debris was piled across the road so high that we couldn’t see over it, even when standing in the hood of dad’s old truck.
Much as here in Louisiana we refer Katrina as “The Storm” my parent’s generation in northern Indiana still refer to that day as “The tornado”.
Still to this day when the sky clouds up and looks “Angry” you will find my elderly mother looking out that same west window as she did some 45 years ago.
The next time I am back in Indiana I will record the old guys talking out the storm. I am sure I can find someplace on the internet to archive it.
Enjoy you show….. Keep up the Good work
Thanks so much for listening, playing and sharing Tim!
Listen to WeatherBrains online at www.WeatherBrains.com or subscribe on iTunes. It’s free.
