Missouri has seen a number of tornadoes throughout the years that have caused devastation and damage on a grand scale. From the Joplin tornado to the recent twisters that struck Cape Girardeau and Delta, Missourians have lived with these storms their entire lives.
However, the history of these storms stretches back much further. One particular disaster almost 76 years ago caused extreme destruction to the Cape Girardeau area.
On Saturday, May 21, 1949, around 7 p.m., a violent EF4 tornado struck the northwest side of Cape. It had already been a busy storm season for the city, as the month of May saw a total of 27 tornadoes. This storm, however, inflicted more damage than all the others combined. 23 people lost their lives in that particular string of storms, including one man from the Oak Ridge area.
Cape Girardeau resident Carol Little was nine years old when the May 21 tornado took place and was running errands with her dad when the storm hit.
“My dad and I were out running errands, and we were downtown and out on Broadway coming home, we were on Bend Road, and daddy said, ‘Caroline, I think we better hurry on home because I think we might be getting a storm,’” Little said.
Little remembers seeing the storm with her own eyes as it tore through Cape Girardeau.
“When we got out of the car, we could see lumber, and we could see that tornado going up over the river,” Little said. “It was so dramatic. We had lumber and all kinds of debris in our yard.”
The 350-yard storm particularly devastated the Red Star and Marble City Heights subdivisions, and more than 220 homes and businesses were completely destroyed. The total damage from the storm was over $3.5 million.
Little recalled a story about one of the families that was impacted by the storm.
“There just wasn’t hardly anything left there in the Red Star area,” Little said. “It was just devastation everywhere… One family was in their basement, and their house just got blown completely away, and there was debris falling on top of them, but all five or six of them got below a table, and they said that table was actually what saved them from getting hit.”
Looking back on this tragedy and the devastation that took place all around her, Little credited God with keeping her family safe.
“I’m not scared to death of storms because I know how to pray and we always pray when storms are threatening, but God spared our lives, I mean if we would’ve been two minutes later coming home we would’ve been right in the middle of it,” Little said.
The Southeast Arrow, a student-run publication and news partner with KRCU Public Radio, originally published this story.