‘It’s a bad one.’
Even 40 years later, the sense of dark
foreboding emanating from the black-and-white photograph is overwhelming.
It shows the 1979 Wichita Falls tornado as
it skirts the northern shore of Lake Wichita and bears down on the city’s
southern neighborhoods. Before its evil work is done, this F4 behemoth will
carve an 8-mile-long, 1½-mile-wide path of devastation through the largest city
in Wichita County, killing 45 of its citizens, injuring 1,700 and leaving a
shattered community in its wake.
In the photo, it doesn’t look much like a
tornado. The familiar funnel shape has collapsed into a black mass of swirling
dirt and debris. It looks like what it is – a menacing wall of death and
destruction exorable in its steady, merciless approach to the quiet, unassuming
northcentral Texas burg.
The photo was taken on the south shore of
Lake Wichita on the evening of April 10, 1979. In Wichita Falls, it’s a date
known simply as Terrible Tuesday.
***
I had received my first inkling of the trouble
brewing in the north on April 9, while watching the early evening weathercast
of legendary Fort Worth meteorologist Harold Taft, known widely as the “World’s
Greatest Weatherman.” No one knew the unpredictability of Texas weather better
or could divine its mysteries with more accuracy.
Taft, pointing to a spot about midway
between Wichita Falls and Lawton, Okla., told his viewers, “By this time
tomorrow, we could be seeing some very unsettled weather in this area,” he
said. “It bears watching.”
“Unsettled weather” during a North Texas
spring means only one thing – severe thunderstorms and the possibility of
tornadoes. Taft, in his calm, understated way, was telling his viewers to watch
the skies and be ready to duck.
Quickening pulse-beat
The next day, I went to work as usual at
the old Dallas Times Herald, where I
was a city reporter four months into my first job at a major metro newspaper.
By late afternoon, editors were quietly telling their reporters to stick around
for a while. Trouble was brewing.
Violent weather had sprung up along and on
both sides of the Red River as afternoon temperatures soared and the atmosphere
grew more roiled. Tornadoes had been reported in numerous locations. I could
feel the quickening pulse-beat of the newsroom.
We started calling police dispatchers in
cities located to the north of Dallas, probing for any information on damage
and injuries. If a twister touched down and caused significant damage within a
reasonable distance, we knew one or more of us would be dispatched to the
scene.
At about 6 p.m., Night City Editor Ernie
Makovy, one of the best breaking-news editors in the business, received a phone
call from a reporter for the Wichita Falls newspaper who occasionally
freelanced for us.
A tornado had touched down in the city,
she said, her voice cracking with excitement and emotion. She could provide few
details, but she said shrieking winds and driving rain were whipping through
her back yard. “It’s bad,” she said. “It’s a bad one.”
Her report energized the newsroom. After a
flurry of more phone calls, we confirmed a tornado, moving northeast, had
struck Wichita Falls. Damage was extensive. Casualties? Probably. But no one
knew how many or how bad.
Makovy immediately sent a reporter speeding
toward Wichita Falls, gambling he could reach the stricken city soon enough to
get color and details for the state edition. Looking at the clock, Makovy lit a
cigarette and inhaled the smoke deeply. It was going to be close.
A monster story
Within an hour, as the scope of the
disaster gradually emerged, Makovy sent another carload of reporters northwestward.
This clearly was shaping up to be a monster story. The Times Herald would need boots on the ground all night to prepare
for the next day’s afternoon edition and beyond.
Looking around the nearly empty newsroom,
I exchanged nervous glances with the only other remaining reporter, Thom
Marshall. If news broke out in Dallas on this stormy spring night, it would be
up to us to handle it.
On Channel 5, Taft, whose predictions the
night before had turned out to be exactly on target, reported that the violent
weather system the National Weather Service would later dub “the Red River
Valley Tornado Outbreak” also had spawned deadly twisters in Vernon, Texas, and
Lawton, Okla. It now was headed south – directly for Dallas.
“Dear God, no,” I said to no one in
particular.
Makovy looked over at me with a tight
grin.
I could guess what he was thinking. He’d
just sent most of his reporters to Wichita Falls. And now Dallas sat in the
crosshairs of an approaching storm system that already had killed people in two
states.
Everybody at the Times Herald loved and respected Makovy, a compact, good-looking
guy with a harsh, barking laugh and a wicked sense of humor. He wore his hair
slicked back and favored short-sleeved white shirts. On deadline, his ties
remained tightly knotted at his throat.
Artist in motion
A brilliant rewrite man, Makovy was icy
calm under pressure. Watching him work the night desk on deadline was to see an
artist in motion, the epitome of economy in word, action and deed.
He could sense my unease at the approach
of the storm and the prospects of working my first major story in a big-city
newsroom.
“This is where it gets fun, Gunnels,” Makovy
said.
I walked to the north side of the
fourth-floor newsroom and gazed out the windows. Already, the northern sky was
being illuminated with non-stop flashes of lightning. The storm’s leading edge would
be too far away to hear the thunder, but the lightning alone issued an
unmistakable warning: Get ready. I’m coming.
I hurried to my desk and started working
the phones. We still hadn’t heard from the folks we had sent to Wichita Falls,
and the first-edition deadline was looming.
Luckily for us, an AP reporter was on the
scene in Wichita Falls. Kathy Carroll, based in Dallas, had followed her
instincts earlier in the afternoon and moved closer to the developing storm.
She was on the outskirts of the city when the tornado began its deadly rampage.
From her early reports, combined with sketchy
details provided by our stringer and the information Thom and I had extracted
over the phone, Makovy began to put together a main story. But without details
and interviews from the scene, it was pretty thin gruel, and Makovy knew it.
Logistical prowess
In the days before cell phones and the internet,
getting information from the scene of a breaking news story could be a
monumental chore. Logistical prowess – in addition to writing and reporting
expertise – was a vital skill for any reporter.
In those days, pay phones still were a
staple of reporting. In a small city like Wichita Falls, they would be few and
far between. Besides, if damage was extensive, as seemed increasingly likely,
the availability of telephone lines might be iffy.
Somehow, someway, the resourceful Carroll,
who later went on to become executive editor of the entire AP, had secured a working
phone she was using to communicate with her editors. Our reporters, once they
reached the shattered city, would be expected to do the same.
As the minutes ticked past, Makovy began
playing with the story’s lead. There was plenty we didn’t know, but some things
we did: People had been killed in a least three cities, and numerous tornadoes
had been reported across a large swatch of northcentral Texas and southern
Oklahoma.
I don’t remember when our people finally
called in. I do recall, with crisp clarity, the immense look of relief that
swept over Makovy’s face and his fake-mad inquiry, “Where the hell have you
guys been?”
Laser focus
The rest of the night is a blur. I shared
dictation duties with other members of the night staff, hurrying quotes and
details of the damage paragraph by paragraph to Makovy, who was crafting the first-edition
story with a laser focus none of us dared interrupt.
On one trip to his desk, I peeked over his
shoulder at his developing lead and caught the phrase “dancing phalanx of
tornadoes” weaving a deadly path. I shook my head in admiration.
At some point in the evening, it became
clear that the approaching storm had exhausted much of its fury and would slip
past the Metroplex with little fanfare. By 2 a.m., the city final was put to
bed, and we all went home.
The next day, I came in late, still groggy
and unfocused. My editor, Doug Bailey, called me to his desk.
“We’re sending you to Wichita Falls,” he
said.
That got my eyes open. “When?” I asked.
“Right
now,” he replied. “You’ll meet up with the team at the motel. Call when you get
there – if you can.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
Grabbing a couple of notebooks, I headed
for my car. A strange mixture of dread and anticipation rolled over me. I stood
poised on the brink of something, what I didn’t yet know.
Next: Faith Village
Terrible Tuesday by the numbers
42
– Deaths
in Wichita Falls caused by direct contact with the tornado
3
– Fatal
heart attacks caused by stress of the storm
1,700
– Injured
8
by 1½ – Size in miles of the tornado’s path of destruction
25
– People
who died in vehicles
16
–
People who died in vehicles trying to flee the storm
11
–
Of those who died fleeing the storm in vehicles, number whose houses were
undamaged
3
–
Number of supercell thunderstorms involved in the Red River Valley Tornado
Outbreak
13
– Total
number of tornados reported in outbreak
13
–
Deaths in Vernon (10) and Lawton (3)
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