MISSOURI: Five Minutes of Havoc

Hard rains slashed in horizontal sheets across St. Louis one night last week, and radio stations dutifully carried the Weather Bureau's heavy-thunderstorm warnings. The weather was still foul when the city went to bed. Two hours-past midnight, it worsened destructively. Without warning, a tornado, bad weather's traveling explosion, roared down upon the town.

Striking about four miles from the city limits, it damaged eight homes, toppled KXLW's 385-ft. radio transmitting antenna. With the heavy, rushing sound of a thundering locomotive, it rolled into the city, tossed KTVI's 575-ft. TV tower across the roofs of two apartment buildings, crushed the second floor of a four-family house, ripped off part of the roof of a sports arena, uprooted trees. It mangled a Ferris wheel in an amusement park, then slanted northeast—straight into the city's center. There, in a 3-sq.-mi. sector, years ago St. Louis' "silk stocking'' district, the twister changed its swath-cutting pattern and skip-bombed its havoc: it ripped up some of the same buildings that were wrecked in the St. Louis tornado of 1927 (which killed 78), dropped at random like a cleaver in some blocks, spewed rubble into great heaps. And then, perhaps five minutes after it had begun, the tornado snuffed itself out.

Working through the night, Red Cross, Civil Defense, police and other rescue groups dug hundreds of survivors from the wreckage. By daylight the city turned a weary, sad eye on the results: 21 dead, more than 300 injured, 1,800 families left homeless, 1,725 buildings damaged. Total storm cost: $12 million.