Stories from the Victims of the Brandenburg Tornado

Note: this article is from the book "Since April 3rd" published by The Meade County Messenger and is used by permission.  If you use any photos or accounts in this article please give them credit.

Fears Whole Family Is Killed

On Wednesday, April 3^rd, Mrs. Mary Helen Chism, wife of Jailer Herbert Chism, her daughter Judy, and son-in-law, George Angelo, had been in Louisville shopping. They stopped in Worley’s Grocery to buy some groceries. Billy Worley, proprietor, asked her, “What has happened in Brandenburg?” Mrs. Chism replied, “I don’t know, we have been in Louisville.”

A customer in the store said, “Brandenburg has been hit by a tornado. There are no known survivors. All Downtown Brandenburg is gone.” This news threw her into a state of shock, and urgency to find other members of her family.

As they came on to Brandenburg and first saw West Hill, Judy said, “Mother, it’s so. The Baptist Church is gone. Jenkins-Sturgeon Funeral Home is gone. Everything on West Hill is gone.”

They continued on to Boling’s Store where her son, State Patrolman Clyde Wyatt was directing traffic. Clyde told her, “Mother, we may have lost Cathy (Mrs. Tony Staples). Daddy is all right, but you will have to pull yourself together on his account.” The jail is still standing.”

She learned about an hour later that the RECC building where Cathy was working was flattened but Cathy was uninjured.

The Chism family’s plight was typical of families who were in different places when the tornado struck
 

Notes From My Diary
By MRS. GARLAND (LIBBY) BROWN 

Tomorrow, April 10^th, will be one week since the tornado hit Brandenburg. I look at it, but I don’t believe it even yet.

It was so hot and muggy last Wednesday-the day of the tornado—that I expected a storm all day. When about 3:30 or 3:45 a downpour came, with thunder and lightning, I wasn’t scared-1 was relieved that it wasn’t worse. There was some hail and the water was everywhere, rushing down ditches and standing in the road, but there was no wind to speak of here where we live. We’ve had much harder winds here lots of times.

Mary E. had stayed at school for chorus practice. I usually waited for her to call me when she was, ready for me to come and pick her up, but that day I had made Emily a new blouse and I wanted to stop at Ann’s to get some buttons for it. Emily and I watched’ ‘The Price Is Right” from 3: 30 until 4: 00 on television, then since the rain had let up, we got dressed and drove into town. Thinking back, I suppose we were headed toward Brandenburg just while the tornado was wiping it out. I didn’t see anything especially ominous-It was dark and raining harder again, but I didn’t see any funnel clouds.

We went around the by-pass from the Battletown Road Junction and I stopped in front of Ann’s shop in the IGA parking lot. It was really pouring rain by then and Emily and I sat there in the car, waiting for the rain to slack off. I noticed that a sign had been blown over at the gas station, then I noticed a sort of unusual activity on the porch of the IGA building-the clerks and carry-out boys seemed to be milling around oddly and Joanna Tupman, who works at Ann’s, was standing out in front of the shop crying. Emily had just said something like, “Wonder why she’s crying over a little old thunderstorm,” when Ann came out and hollered at me and asked if I had been into Brandenburg. When I said no, she told me there had been a tornado and that the word was that the town had been leveled.

My first thought was Mary Eleanor was at the high school and had it been hit-then I wondered where Garland was-was he at the RECC building and had it been hit-or was he out in the county somewhere-,after that, I don’t think I thought. I started to the high school, going on the by-pass road. Then we saw the first of the devastation-the by-pass was blocked by wires, poles, and a big section of fence that was completely across the road. The radio station was just a shattered wall or two. The tower was completely gone. Looking across the fields, we could see the rubble that had been William Dowden’s home.

There were dozens of cars in the area by now and all of us were wild to find out about our families and friends. The four-way stop sign wasn’t working but it sticks in my mind how nicely all of us took our turns to go. I guess it was some built-in obedience to rules that kept us from having some terrible smash-ups, because there were none-not even fender-benders.

I turned back on the by-pass and went in past the IGA store toward the RECC. All of us were yelling to each other in other cars, asking what had been hit, who had been hurt, where was the worst damage-and nobody knew. Then I reached Dowden’s Dairy store-all smashed-then the RECC building. It was a pile of brick and stone and twisted beams and all the cars and trucks in the parking lot were thrown and bent and piled up like broken toys. I can remember saying, “Oh dear God, oh my God,” over and over.

I could see some of the RECC personnel working around the rubble. There was a pole and a lot of wires across the parking lot and I climbed over it. I thought later that was probably a dumb thing to do. I ran down one bank and up another one to where I was close enough to yell at the men. They told me they were all okay. The whole work force had been in the basement, under all that rubble, but except for some minor cuts, they were all right.

Now I knew Garland was all right and I had to get to Mary. By the time I got back to the by-pass, some blessed soul had cut the fence and wires so we could get through. I was almost afraid to look, but the school had only gotten the edge of the tornado and had survived with only roof damage, broken windows and some battered cars in the parking lot. All the teachers arid students, including Mary, were fine.

When we left the school, we drove through by St. John’s Church. There were trees, pieces of roofs and other debris in the road, but it was passable. When we got to the church, we could look out across town toward the west. There was so much destruction, shattered buildings, downed trees, that my mind just couldn’t comprehend it. I couldn’t think what was gone because I couldn’t think what had been.

I still have this disoriented feeling when I’m in Brandenburg. So much is gone and will never be back. The beautiful old trees, the houses, the shops and stores, the cemeteries, the Baptist Church, and most of all-the lives-so many people, so suddenly.

I know the town will rebuild and one day it will be beautiful again, but it won’t be the Brandenburg I have known all my life. Someday, there won’t be anyone left who can remember how Brandenburg looked before 4 o’clock in the afternoon on April 3 1974.-By Mrs. Garland Brown. 

Swath of Destruction
By JON WHITFIELD

There is a path through the center of Brandenburg that looks like a combination of urban renewal and ancient ruins. The walls of some buildings are standing; many other houses are completely demolished. We live five miles west of Brandenburg; I knew nothing about the tornado until my wife-who had been in the middle of it-came home in a borrowed car and said, “Didn’t you know Brandenburg’s demolished?”, and then almost collapsed crying. Our older son, Matt, was still at the high school at band practice in Brandenburg.
 

I had been in Brandenburg about 10 minutes previous to the tornado. I had picked up four- year-old Debbie at the doctor’s office. I had finally talked my wife into going to the doctor for her sore throat and she had gone early to avoid a long wait. I picked up Debbie to get her out of her mother’s hair. Then I stopped to get the weekly newspaper and a birthday card at a gift shop.
 

Since I’d noticed pink clouds in the sky, I pointed to a picture of storm damage from a few days previous and asked, “Suppose we’re going to have more of this?” Five minutes later the roof and part of the walls of the building were missing. The clinic where my wife was, was not damaged, but all the surrounding buildings were.
 

But at our house, there was only a hard rain, moderate wind and a little hail. It didn’t even take off roof shingles as it did the other night.
 

Many hundred year old buildings-some with thick brick walls-were destroyed. They weren’t slums, either.
 

Shortly after the tornado, Rosina checked on the car which was not damaged, though others in the lot were. There were emergency vehicles all around and she didn’t know how far she could get with the car so she started walking towards home which took her through the most devastated part of town. She noticed that only the walls of the Baptist Church were standing. Nothing was left of the nearby funeral home. A few houses were left standing, but so many were gone she had trouble getting her bearings and couldn’t remember whether some houses were there or not.
 

She saw people she knew along the way, inquired about them and kept walking. She went to Mrs. Joe Woolfolk’s house about a mile and a half away. Aunt Bet told her to drive her car and she got home quickly then.
 

When she seemed settled down enough to recall that she didn’t think the storm had hit the part of town where the high school is and we reasoned-ignorance may not be bliss, but it helped at the moment-that that type building wouldn’t be damaged, I started out to look for Matt. I couldn’t get through the first street for the debris but as I turned I could see part of the flattened area.
 

I turned and got through the street where the high school was after explaining to the guard I was looking for my son. He wasn’t there, but I talked to the custodian who said everyone at the school was alright. The main path had missed the building but knocked glass out of the car windshields parked where I would have been if I’d been waiting to pick him up.
 

By the time I got home, friends had brought him home. He went back to help and I went see about my mother-in-law and try to phone my parents to let them know. I didn’t reach them till afternoon the next day.
 

No one on either side of our family was hurt. My mother-in-law was not far from the destruction, but got the grandchildren she was keeping to a basement.
 

My great-aunt in her 80’s, with a dangerous heart condition, lived in a house at the edge of the destruction. I didn’t know till the next day she was still living, but apparently she is doing all right. Cousins lived on the other side of the tornado path in the ground floor of a large old house. They were not hurt and most of their furnishings were left intact, but the walls and roof were knocked down.
 

I went with their daughter and son-in-law on Friday to clear out the furnishings but the police at first wouldn’t let us in town. We tried another entrance and got to the state policeman we know who was handing out passes.
 

I have cousins who own a dairy farm. The house my great-great-grandfather bought and where my grandmother grew up was leveled as was the other farm house. Only part of the barn walls are left.
 

Later in the day I went to the nearby town of Irvington for groceries. About five miles out of Brandenburg there is about a three mile stretch of highway where the area is completely uprooted-twisted telephone poles, wires down, dead cows lying around-a real blitzkrieg.
 

Of course one question is, how come there were so many killed-31 and some missing- when far less were killed in Louisville over a much larger area? I think it really hit harder here. More houses were really flattened; at least from the pictures this seemed to be the case.
 

More important, we had almost no warning. The Louisville stations were advising tornado watches but not in our area. The local radio station disk jockey looked out the window and said, “My Lord, there’s a tornado coming. Take cover!” Almost immediately-I think-we didn’t have the radio on-the roof was blown off, the transmitting tower blown down, and the station was off the air. (I have heard since there were other warnings, but we missed them). The radio station in nearby Breckinridge County has been giving local news which we get quicker and in more detail than from Louisville stations.
 

When you look around you see buildings almost miraculously spared when all the buildings surrounding were destroyed. The type of construction didn’t seem to matter. It reminds one of the Biblical quotation of the last days when one will be left in the field and one will be taken.
 

Anyway, we feel lucky and grateful to be spared, as close as some of us were to it all. We may have lost our television set; the shop it was in for repairs was flattened, but we’ve realized there are more important things. Rosina has had serious nerve problems-and I was concerned about her. Considering what she’s been through, she’s holding up well; maybe realizing some of the things she worried about most weren’t worth it. It’s a common enough feeling after an experience like this.- Jon Whitfield.

The Lord Was With Me

On the day of April 3, I was going about my usual business. I visited with my good neighbor, Martha Son in the early afternoon. When 1 got up to leave, she asked me to please stay longer, but I said no, as it looked as if a heavy storm was coming up.
 

I went home and went to my kitchen, about 2: 30 to prepare my evening meal. I turned on my radio for entertainment-something I almost never do at this time of day. I1 had eaten and was preparing to wash dishes.
 

I heard the announcer on WMMG say that there was a tornado which had touched down at Hardinsburg and then at Irvington. Then he said’ ‘It’s here, take cover!” I went immediately to my basement-the first time I ever in nine years took cover there.
 

My house was completely blown away, down to the sub floor. My car was blown in the river. I was safe and unharmed. I know that the Lord took care of me. My basement door was jammed, so I was trying to climb out a window. Henry Coleman came over and got me out. Friends have been wonderful, and the Lord has been good to me, for which I am very thankful. I am building my house back.
Mrs. D. J. Sturgeon Brandenburg

 

At The Messenger Office
By JANE MARLOW WILLIS

The Messenger staff was already tired when the tornado struck Brandenburg April 3. The catastrophe further exhausted the already fatigued group of workers.
 

On the last of March, the printing foreman, Jack Ping, a Messenger employee of more than 16 years resigned. On the first of April, the other members of the staff began working harder to take up the slack of that job.

On Monday, April 1, a smaller tornado ripped through Meade County, and extra work had been necessary to give adequate coverage to that story. 

So all of us were glad to get off from work at 4 p.m. rather than 4: 30 on Wednesday.
At a little after 4, Bro. Tom Bridge was finishing his job of delivering mail sacks full of Messengers to the post office. At 4:09 he had Just parked the pickup truck behind The Messenger office. MCHS co-op student Sharon Carmack had just gone to get her car which was parked behind the Moose Lodge. Shirley Clark was leaving with Beverly Allen, and as the storm started, they left their car in the alley between The Messenger and the Moose Lodge and came back to the office to take shelter in the basement.
 

We were also alarmed. Dad was in the back shop when he heard the noise which he instinctively knew was a tornado. Everyone headed toward the basement, and I hollered, “Wait, we need to open a door”. Mom said she would open a large side door, and in doing so, was knocked down by the pressure. She crawled the few feet to the basement door, and then, like a two-year-old, sat on the steps and bumped down the stairs to the basement.
 

The wind whistled through the basement, and broke several windows. In a few seconds it was all over. Everyone felt their way up the steps through the darkness.
 

Outside Bro. Tom and Sharon were making their way over the rubble to get to the office. Neither of them had been hurt, although both were right out in the area where the Moose Lodge had collapsed.
 

Everyone else tells how terrible the sound was. I don’t even remember the sound. What I do remember is the smell. It was so much like the smell that I’ve noticed at fires, that I wondered it the time if all disasters smell alike. I’ve later been told that the distinctive odor was ozone, and that it was the great amount of dust that was swirled through the air.
 

Afterward, it was quiet, and I was the first one out of the basement. The first thing I did was to check the computers, and I was relieved to see them in the same place as they were before the tornado.
 

I looked outside, and the back half of the Moose Lodge was completely demolished. I ran out on the street, and hurried back to get my camera. Finally I had time to see the damage done to my house.
 

After the storm, I saw Bradley Johnston, and he took me around town in his Triumph, which we almost willed around the fallen trees. Bradley was a patient soul, for he took me all over town to take pictures of all the damage, and never complained when I took a lot of time to get the right angles for the photographs. Many of the pictures in this book were taken within an hour of the tornado.
 

In the downtown area, it wasn’t long before the injured people were being carried to the Clinic. And it wasn’t much longer before people with chain saws and other tools were in the area, cleaning up the debris. Before dark, people were starting to try to get things back in as much order as possible.
 

Perhaps the Willis family is just terribly conservative, but we didn’t entertain any thought of leaving downtown Brandenburg that night. I knew that I was not going to be able to stay at my house, and I don’t think any of us doubted that we’d all stay at the apartment over The Messenger.
 

The front of the building had bowed out, and we kept watch on it, just wondering when it would fallout. I must have made a dozen trips between the office and my house, getting supplies and things that I simply couldn’t leave.
 

I hadn’t slept with my parents for 30 years, but on the night of April 3, I was glad that Mom and Dad’s kingsize bed hadn’t blown away, and that the three of us were relatively secure. The only place that the roof hadn’t blown off The Messenger building was the north west corner, where the master bedroom is. Of course, we didn’t get much sleep that night. Mom and I must have walked down stairs a dozen times seeing if the front of the building was still intact. I guess we could have rested more and stayed in bed, for the front did not come down until we had a man with a backhoe pull it down Thursday morning.
We were lucky. We even had a telephone working. We notified all our relatives that we were all right, and then I called WHAS radio and television to report on the tornado in Brandenburg.
 

I guess every reporter dreams of being a star reporter, but I would have given anything Thursday morning to be able to go back to April 2, when I was only a small town editor. I’m glad that I was unhurt and therefore able to do the reporting, and professionally I’m glad I was able to do the job that I did. But for my money I’d rather write stories the rest of my life about what the bride wore, and what the mayor and the city council plan to do.
 

It’s truly an ego trip when an associate producer from the CBS weekend news calls and asks for an appointment for help in covering the tornado story. It’s more than a weekly editor ever expects to be quoted in The New York Times, and for a Times reporter to use a country weekly’s torn up office for his headquarters. It’s even more heady when a roving editor of The Readers Digest asks your opinion of whom to interview for an article for his magazine. Reporters from WHAS and WAVE in Louisville also took The Messenger as a convenient spot to work from.
 

All of us here did what we could. And in the case of The Messenger staff, what we could do was, first, produce the next week’s paper.
 

Thursday morning, less than 18 hours after the tornado, some of us were at The Messenger, starting to brew coffee over a hibachi. It was cold and damp and miserable, and Dad and I were huddled around the charcoal fire trying to keep warm. Shortly after 8 o’clock, Mr. Troutman came in and asked if we were open for business. When we told him we were, he said, “Good. I have some pigs for sale, and I’d like to get an ad in next week’s paper.’ ,
 

At that time, we felt that no matter what happened, we were still a vital force in our community. We took Mr. Troutman’s ad, and the other ads that came in that day, and there were a few. We called the computer company to come check our typesetting computers. We thought that they were okay, but we wanted to make sure.
 

About that time, the deluge of visiting newsmen started. We were glad that they felt free to come to our office, for we did know where they could find the’ ‘best” stories. We were able to introduce them to Meade Countians who had interesting stories to tell. All of those visiting newsmen, from large city papers and from television stations were kind people, who seemed to want to do the best reporting they could, while still not trampling on the feelings of a downcast citizenry.
 

Of all the people who visited The Messenger office, and that included newsmen and politicians and other people, almost all commented on the good cheer of the citizens who had been hit so terribly hard. Most asked’ ‘How can you be so cheerful in the face of what has happened to you?”
 

The tornado made me realize how proud I am of Brandenburg and its citizens. Of course, we disagree among ourselves, but that is not important. At times when it counts, we pull together. Those who had chainsaws and those who knew how to use them got busy and cut trees that were blocking the roads. Those who had heavy equipment brought it in and began the clean-up work hardly before the tornado was over. Those who could cook, and still had the facilities to do so brought hot food to those of us whose kitchens were ruined. Those who were good with children helped care for the little ones.
 

And then the Mennonites came. And they were great. They didn’t stand around and ask what they could do—they picked up their tools and started to clean up the mess left by the wind. Other volunteers, mostly from Meade County, but a number from other communities and even other states came in, and soon clean up chores were started in earnest.
 

And here at The Messenger, we started to get out another week’s paper. Although we had some trouble, not from local sources, of getting information about those who had been forced to move, we did get a list of displaced persons, and where they were now living. We took pictures of the devastation, and thanks to The Courier-Journal and the kind people in the photographic department, we had a large number of pictures for the paper of April 11.
 

Unfortunately, our computers, which set the type, were ruined. They had been virtually sandblasted on the inside, although they looked all right on the outside. So we had to make three or four trips a week to Tell City to get our type set, and two trips a week to Corydon to set the headline type.
 

On the morning of April 3, we at The Messenger were tired already. After the tornado, we were exhausted. For all of us here in Brandenburg and the surrounding area, our fatigue was just starting at 4: 15 Wednesday, April 3, for all of us had to do not only our regular jobs, but restoration from the disaster as well.
 

At The Messenger, we had to get out a regular paper, working harder than ever, due to the loss of a long time employee and machinery as well. In addition, we had to oversee the rebuilding of the office, due to the damage done by the tornado.
 

Mom and Dad were able to live in their apartment above The Messenger. However, for a long time, a rafter hung perilously through the living room ceiling, and glass shards were in the furniture for weeks. Somehow, they managed to exist in the apartment although work kept on in the rebuilding process.

I was less lucky, in one way. My house, three doors up the street from The Messenger was severely damaged, needing a new north wall and a new roof, among other things. I was lucky in that my neighbor, Vera Willett got a HUD trailer and asked me to share it with her. Although neither of us ever regarded the trailer as “home”, we were glad to have a roof over our heads while our homes were being rebuilt.
 

We are all now “back home”. My parents have gotten their apartment almost back to normal, and my house is even more comfortable than I remembered it being.
 

Some of my friends away from here told me, “what are you worried about, the tornado was months ago.” Only those who have gone through a disaster can realize that the process of getting back to normal takes months or even years, not just a few days.

But through it all, I was glad that I live in a community as great as Meade County, where your neighbors really do help in time of need.
 

My Former Grocery Route
By JOHN J. SCOTT

At 5:45 p.m. on April 3rd, 1974, I was stopped at the first roadblock going into Brandenburg, where a state trooper asked me what my business was in town.
 

I told him that I was concerned about my grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. ]. W. Bondurant. Their home was in the center of West Hill in Brandenburg, and according to radio reports, that area had been hit pretty hard. But my concern and business went further than that. Many of the residents of Brandenburg were old friends to me. Our friendship had begun on visits to my Grandparent’s grocery store in the summers and on holidays as I was growing up. Later on I had spent five years working at their store sacking groceries and making deliveries, and this was when I really came to know Brandenburg and her citizens.
 

It was old delivery knowledge that got me into Brandenburg proper that night. I was backed up in a line of traffic in front of the bank. At that point, an officer was stopping all traffic and repeating the same message to each anxious driver, “The road to downtown is closed”. As he spoke, ambulances and army emergency vehicles screamed past, taking the injured to Fort Knox and Elizabethtown. Their presence only made me more determined to get to West Hill. Being blocked from going down the main hill, I decided to take a right next to Davis Florist Shop and see if I could circle around and come out by the Methodist Church. I had been that way several times in years past delivering groceries to Prit and Dolly Wardrip, the Woodson Brown’s, and the many other customers on East Hill. I had no trouble getting around the tennis courts and playground, and thus ended up by the library. The next thing I saw was a scene I shall never forget. There on West Hill, as if it had been prepared for a bombed-out devastation setting in a war movie, was the destruction you read about that happens to other places, but never to your own town. The only familiar landmark was the remains of the Phillips Memorial Baptist Church where I had been ring-bearer 20 years earlier in my Aunt Mary’s wedding, and where my great-grandmother Bondurant had been eulogized after 85 glorious years.
 

I didn’t linger to gaze at the unrecognizable wreckage in the distance. Darkness would set in before long and I wanted to find out what I could about my grandparents’ home and their neighbors before the town was closed for the night. (I had already received word that my grandparents were safe, though slightly injured). Taking a right, back onto the main road between the Methodist Church and post office, a quick glance told me that Lillian Lyon’s house was not badly damaged. Mrs. Lyon had always been a regular customer at the store, and we had enjoyed many chats together. I hoped she was alright.
 

A road block had been set up in front of Mrs. Boling’s store, so I parked by the ball field and walked from there. People were milling around everywhere, and a man in the street was yelling to watch out for dangling electric lines. I noticed that a huge tree had fallen across Mrs. John Bircher’s house opposite Boling’s store. Mrs. Bircher had always been so kind to me when I took her groceries home, which was only when she had more than one sack to carry. Even in her eighties, she insisted on carrying at least one sack herself. My fear for her safety was to become a sad reality when her broken body was discovered at her sister’s home some three days later.
 

In the next block, had been my grandfather’s store. That afternoon, the wind had taken the roof off the store and only the crumbling walls remained of a building that had stood for quality merchandise for over twenty years.
 

One of the major goals in growing up as a grandchild of the Bondurant’s was being old enough to walk from the house to the store by yourself. This only involved a journey of two short blocks, and the crossing of one street, but it was a mark of maturity when you achieved the privilege of making this trip alone. But on Wednesday, April 3rd, in retracing the same steps back from the store to where my grandparents’ home had been, I felt more apprehension than I had ever known as a child. Splintered utility poles and dangling cables criss-crossed the street between Billy Hamilton’s house and my great-grandparents’ home. Mr. Hamilton’s house was apparently in shambles. Surprisingly, my great-grandparents’ home, which I associated with cigar smoke and pictures of Kentucky Statesmen on the walls, was still in relatively good shape. But a sickening terror hit me when I searched the hill for my grand- parents’ home. The hill was empty. Oh, there were snags and debris humped here and there, but the two story white brick where I had awakened every childhood Christmas morning was gone. Then I found some perspective on noticing the old dinner bell post in the side yard. It stood by goggling against the sky-a pointer to show the direction the storm had taken.
 

Hurrying on up High Street to the intersection where Phillips Memorial Church had stood, I noticed that the old Baptist parsonage had been badly damaged. I thought of it as Brother Bratcher’s home, since he had been the Pastor there during my early working years. In the parking lot of the church, I started to see familiar faces. A grim and tight-lipped Jane Willis was the first I spoke to. Then Daymon Givans and Robert Morris came up from the back of the church. Robert’s tee-shirt was soaked with blood. They said they had carried some of the dead out from the area behind the church. Daymon was the first of many I spoke to over the next few days who expressed concern about my grandparents. Several friends assumed they were dead after seeing the hill where their home had stood. But miraculously, as they will tell you, their Maker was not yet ready for them.
 

A soldier from Fort Knox challenged me as I started to climb the wall in front of the new parsonage on the way to the side yard of the old home place. The storm had played no favorites. The Parsonage lay in ruins. I satisfied the soldier as to my mission, and crossed the yard as best I could. Century-old trees lay uprooted and twisted on the lawn, leaving cavernous holes where their roots had been. The worn chopping block that had served the store for many years, having been retired to the back porch of the house, lay upended in the mud. It had taken four men to carry it to the porch, the tornado had flicked it across the yard like a seed pod.
 

Rising out of the heap of rubble was the interior stairway of the house, leading now only to the gray clouded sky. The bannister which had slicked the seat of many pairs of pants, and provided a favorite peeking place on Christmas mornings, was nowhere to be seen. Along with the entire upstairs, it had left, following the whims of the wind.
 

I shall not dwell on material losses of my loved ones, for those are not really important. And besides, what can you really say about a house that knew the laughter of 19 grandchildren; that had the room for three simultaneous Rook games following a Thanksgiving dinner for 30; that was surrounded by rolling hills and fertile pastures for livestock; that had good neighbors in all directions and the highest vantage point in town. Because of the trees between my grand- parents’ street and the river, you had never been able to see the Ohio River from my grand- parents’ home before. But that evening, as I stood on the stairway amidst the wreckage, I could see the river, and much more-more than I wanted to see. I could look across the garden down towards Applegate and English’s garage—now a mass of twisted steel. Up the street, Mrs. Ernest Heavrin’s house looked in good shape. Mr. Heavrin had always fascinated me with his tales of trading knives or cattle or horses. Mrs. Heavrin had been fortunate.
 

Beyond the back pasture, I could see down Fairgrounds Road where the O’Bryans lived. I had delivered their groceries many a time and Mrs. O’Bryan had always greeted me with a smile. Mr. O’Bryan had captured my admiration for his keen intelligence and constant desire to learn. After he was 90, he had expressed his desire to attend the college at Elizabethtown so he could continue his education. I was deeply saddened to hear of the loss of this couple.
 

On out the road, in what was locally known as Frogtown, lived Addie and Nellie Ditto and Ethel Neff, probably three of Brandenburg’s most admired women. I knew the way to each of their homes by heart, for all three women were loyal customers of my grandfather’s store over the years. I had never seen Addie when she wasn’t laughing, and I guess I had expected her to live forever. I am sure as many white folks as black, grieved at her passing.
 

Ethel had been at every Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner I could remember, and was considered part of our family, I later learned she refused to ride in an army helicopter to the hospital, declaring that once she had her feet on the ground following the tornado, she wasn’t about to leave the good earth again.
 

Leaving the yard I made my way across the street to where Byron Kelly Dowell’s home had been. Only the basement walls were left of the Dowell’s house. My grandfather’s black truck, in which I had made my deliveries in years past, was flattened against the splintered trunk of a tree in the Dowell’s yard, forming a U as if a horseshoe had made a ringer around the tree.
 

I turned left down the hill on the pavement behind the church, and although this was a short street, I knew it well for two very steady customers had lived there. One house was where Miss Emma Wilson, and her sister, Miss Bertha Foote had lived. Miss Bertha had most likely been in the store every day since it had opened, for her daily walks around town led by our doorway. That evening, Mrs. Wilson and her other sister, Mrs. John Bircher, lay buried beneath the broken timbers in the general vicinity of where the house had stood. The destruction along this street was so terrible that all the homes merged into one great swathe of debris, as if a blender  had mixed them all together and then frosted the earth with the mixture. The former home of  Everett Shaw was another ingredient in the blend, and I was somewhat thankful that this kindly  old gentleman had been spared this destruction by his natural demise sometime earlier. 
 

Mayor Fast’s home sat on the hill opposite the end of this street. The former mayor had also missed the holocaust, having been admitted to a hospital in Louisville the previous month, following a stroke. The roof of his home was now in the Ohio River or somewhere in Southern Indiana. But the walls still stood, and as with most of Brandenburg, a gritty, gooey mud layered the contents of the house, finding its way into the smallest crevice.
 

Around the corner from the Fast home had been the Jenkins-Sturgeon Funeral Home. It was gone. Next door was the old clinic where I had been introduced to life just 25 years and 5 days earlier. Remarkably, this building still stood and had suffered less damage than its neighbors.
 

Directly across the street, the Guy Hardin house lay in ruin. I had always enjoyed the occupants of that old house—Mr. Guy and Miss Irby when I first made deliveries, and later on  Lois Hunt Groves, a dear friend of my Grandmother Scott. I remembered how Addie Ditto I would meet me at the door and show me back to the kitchen. Those were indeed joyous times.
 

Then back across the street and up the hill was the McQuary home where I had standing instructions to pick up the 7-up bottles on the way out, especially if Mrs. McQuary was with a piano student. But no off-key sounds from errant pupils graced the house today. The bitter silence was cut only by the eerie whirl of a dozen helicopters hovering over the area, occasionally landing to fly the injured to Fort Knox.
 

I had completed a short circle of West Hill, following my old delivery route, constantly inquiring as to the safety of those I knew, but I was still anxious about those whose fate I did not know. Had anyone heard about the residents of the little road running behind the clinic? What about Calvin and Earl Pipes and their mother? Miss Susie Bryant? The Marvin West family? All of these had been on my delivery route and each had left an impression on my life in some respect. Therefore, I wondered about their well being.
 

During that evening and the next few days, I saw many familiar places now damaged or in ruins: Miss Mabel Fontaine’s once spotless kitchen; the shaded house of Miss Nell Frymire; Mr. Bud Price’s house where a dog always greeted me on the back steps; the duplex where Miss Eula Hart lived out her last days; Miss Dora Stone’s always neat apartment in Edwin Woolfolk’s house; the home of Morris and Eddie Woods as you drive into town-all these and so many others.
 

April 3rd was more than a tragic day for Meade County. It seemed that all of the catastrophes in the world had descended on Brandenburg that afternoon.
 

In the Old Testament, in the book of Ecclesiastes, it is said that there is “a time to every purpose under the heaven.. .” “a time to break down. . .”, “a time to die. . .”, “a time to weep. . .”, and “a time to mourn. . .” But the verse goes on-just as the people of Brandenburg did-those same people I had known and befriended on my delivery rounds. Through courage and hard work, they have now found “a time to build up. . .”, “a time to heal. . .”
 

Historic Home Heavily Damaged
By J. R. WATTS

 When I heard the terrible roaring and observed the trees bending to the ground, I knew that it was too late for me to take safety in the Court House; therefore, I rode the tornado out in my small two room office. Trees fell all around my office. The pressure was so great that the walls were pulled outward and large holes appeared. The walls were sucked out and made circular. My files that were on top of my desk were pulled out the windows, and I saw them flyaway. I had to brace myself to keep from being pulled through the windows.
 

I could definitely feel the outer edge of the tornado pass over with much violence, and for a split second it was absolutely quiet, then I could feel the other side pass over. I could see objects of all kinds flying through the air, large and small, trees, houses, limbs, lumber, glass, roofing, straw and insulation. From where I was standing I could one minute see Ellis Blake’s house, and the next minute it was completely gone. Allen’s Hardware store just disintegrated while I was looking at it.
 

From seeing the violence done, I feared for the life of my family; therefore, before the wind subsided or the rain abated, I decided that I had to get home to see about my family. I climbed over the trees in front of my office and under the electric wires. When I got to the street I suddenly realized that I had forgotten my hat so I climbed back over the trees and under the electric wires and got my hat, put it on and ran back down to Main Street, and started looking for a place where the rubble was not too deep to crawl over to get home. The buildings on both sides of Main Street were completely destroyed. I found a place near Edith Duncan’s building where the debris was not so deep that I could crawl over it. When I was crawling past the Duncan building one of the walls caved in right behind me and I could feel the bricks falling on my feet and legs as I scrambled by. The word was spread that I had been killed because they saw the wall fall and thought that I was under it. As I literally crawled up West Hill I could not recognize the landscape. The houses were completely blown away-Ellis Blake, Jenkins- Sturgeon Funeral Home, Perry Lusk’s House, Pearl Duncan home arid others, and the ambulances from the funeral home were all scattered over the hillside.
 

As I passed the rubble at Jenkins-Sturgeon Funeral Home, Richard Condor and I found a little boy in the rubble. He had serious head wounds, and was unconscious, and was covered with mud and debris. When I climbed on up the hill there were people in the debris at the Pearl Duncan house, they later were identified as the Son family which was totally wiped out. Every house on Green Street was totally destroyed, and all other houses on West Hill severely damaged. Later we found that 13 of our friends who lived on Green Street lost their lives, and many more were injured.
 

When I finally arrived at my home, I found Marjorie sitting in the floor bleeding with a cut on her foot. I got water and a cloth and bathed her head and got her to sit in a chair, and later took her to the Clinic to have stitches taken in her wound. Then I ran to the Corum’s house and found Pam and Lisa okay, and then ran to see about Lottie and found that she had been spared and was unhurt, but her house was destroyed. I then checked with the neighbors right across
 from us, and found their houses destroyed but they were unhurt.

 The damage to our house, River Cliff, was extensive. The west rooms were gone, the roof and rafters, and parts of walls of the rest of the house were gone, and the rain was falling right down into every room in the house excepting the two east rooms. Our furniture in the west part of the house was destroyed, and the balance was heavily damaged.
 

This was a very traumatic experience, and I was in shock for several days. Even yet, three months after the tornado, I cannot believe the extensive loss of life and property. It is still unreal to me. One cannot readily accept the fact that so many of his friends, and relatives whom he loves, had been killed or injured. Also, it is difficult to see old houses and antique furniture that you have loved and cherished totally destroyed. TRULY, West Hill, as I knew it, and loved it will never be the same. Many of my friends were killed and many homes and much antique furniture destroyed. There is sadness in my heart for those who lost loved ones and for those who lost cherished possessions, and family heirlooms. To me one of the saddest things was to see the proud families of our County picking through the debris trying to find cherished and prized possessions passed down from prior generations. J. R. Watts.