From: Sherri Hall [ldrbelties@earthlink.net] Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 7:59 PM To: KY-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [KYF] NEWS: Tornado Damage, 1933, Bell Co. & TN Submitted by Mary Lou Hudson The Charleston Daily Mail, Charleston, West Virginia - March 15, 1933 Twister Kills 36, Injures 200 Border Areas of Tennessee and Kentucky Have Huge Damage Nashville Hard Hit Buildings Leveled, Many Villages Feel Force of Tornado Nashville, Tenn., March 15 (AP). A mad March tornado lashed the Tennessee-Kentucky border from the Mississippi to the Cumberlands last night and left behind it 36 known dead, more than 200 injured and property damage estimated above $1,000,000. The twister struck early in the night after preliminary blows at the Arkansas and Missouri side of the Mississippi and mowed a path of destruction from the valley to the mountains through Nashville, Harrogate, Jellico and Kingsport, Tenn., touching many small villages on the way. Throughout the night and early today, the list of dead and injured grew as reports trickled in from the rural communities over crippled communication lines. Nashville, a city of more than 150,000 and the Tennessee capital, felt the full force of the storm as the driving winds dipped over a fringe of hills and cut across the eastern portion of the community, bowling over houses, damaging buildings, uprooting trees and littering the streets with debris. At least 10 were killed here. Scores of buildings in East Nashville were leveled and the national guard was called out to preserve order. Rescue workers with flashlights picked their way over trees and through debris in the hunt for the dead and injured. Two negro churches and a school were wrecked. Fires added to the confusion. Then the storm headed eastward and whipped into middle Tennessee and on across the state. The little of Pruden in the coal mine country reported nine dead. In Kingsport, east Tennessee industrial center, six were killed and Jellico suffered heavy damage. Helton, Antras, Eagan, Clairfield, Valley Creek, Fonds, Newcomb, Woolbridge and Proctor, all in the upper Tennessee country, were hit. Damage at Jellico was estimated at more than $100,000 and in the Clear Fork valley above $500,000. The storm winds also reached into Blue Grass country and there was hail in its wake as it spent its force apparently against the east Tennessee mountains. There were dead at Oswego, Harrogate Mill Point and at Bellwood in the Tennessee storm area. Two person were killed in the destruction of a home at Lebanon, Tenn. The population of the section stricken hardest by the tornado is preponderantly white. 400 Made Homeless Middlesboro, Ky., March 15 (AP) -- Four hundred people were left homeless and about 350 coal miners were thrown out of work at Pruden, Tenn., where nine person were killed by the tornado that swept eastward along the Kentucky-Tennessee border last night. Nineteen persons were injured seriously enough to require hospital treatment here and about 25 others were given first aid. Several of the seriously injured may die. The tornado with lessened fury struck Lincoln Memorial university, damaging roofs of the college buildings, destroying small structures and laying flat scores of trees on the campus. Damage there was estimated at $25,000 to $50,000. ______________________________