Tupelo Tornado of 1936

The infamous “Tupelo Tornado” was an F5 tornado that struck the northeastern Mississippi city of Tupelo on 5 April 1936. With a death toll of over two hundred people, it was the fourth deadliest tornado in the history of the United States. The twister was part of a vast eastward-moving storm system that swept across the Southeast, spawning a dozen tornadoes on April 5 and 6.

The storm system began its destruction in LaCrosse, Arkansas, where an F3 tornado killed one person on the afternoon of April 5. Moving rapidly into Tennessee, it then produced two more tornadoes—an F4 and an F3—that touched down in four counties and killed a total of eleven people. By the time it reached northeastern Mississippi, the entire storm system was moving at a rate of more than fifty miles per hour. One F3 tornado touched down in Booneville, killing four people. The first twister that was in the Tupelo tornado family is thought to have initially touched down approximately sixty-five miles southwest of Tupelo in Yalobusha County near Coffeeville, where it killed four people.

Moving to the northeast, the tornado reached western Lee County around 9:00 p.m. Its first victims were a couple and their eleven children on the outskirts of Tupelo. The tornado then barreled through residential neighborhoods in the northern section of the city, leveling hundreds of structures but skirting Main Street and downtown businesses. By the time it left Tupelo, it had killed more than 216 people. The storm continued into Alabama, where the same supercell spawned another tornado that killed eight people. An additional five people died in another tornado that touched down in the nearby Tennessee countryside. The storm ultimately produced an F4 tornado that ravaged Gainesville, Georgia, killing 203 people. This outbreak is the only recorded series of tornadoes to have produced multiple tornadoes with death tolls of more than one hundred.

The casualties from the Tupelo tornado were significant. According to some news reports at the time, the official death toll was 216 with some 700 injured. However, other sources put the number of fatalities closer to 250 with over 1,000 injured because people who later died from injuries sustained during the tornado were not included in the number of deaths and because of possible undercounting in African American neighborhoods.

The physical damage the city of Tupelo sustained during the brief tornado was extensive, with estimated property damages totaling over three million dollars. Among the hardest-hit areas were the wealthy Willis Heights neighborhood, home to several lavish plantations, and the Gum Pond district, where a high concentration of poor and working-class African Americans lived. Though the business district downtown escaped significant damage, residential sections of Tupelo were devastated. At least two hundred homes were partially or completely destroyed. The tornado also wrecked a number of public buildings. A high school (now Milam Elementary) suffered extensive damage to its gymnasium, where just hours before the twister struck, hundreds of people had been gathered for a worship service. A grammar school on Church Street sustained even greater damage. Many of these public buildings, upon examination by state geologists after the tornado, were found to have had inadequate structures such as “dead” mortar, resulting in calls for changes in architecture codes. The Tupelo Battle Memorial, made of thick concrete blocks, was flattened by the twister.

Perhaps most significant, the tornado heavily damaged the Tupelo hospital. In the immediate aftermath of the tornado, with hundreds of injured people in need of care, makeshift hospitals were set up at the Lee County courthouse, the Tupelo Military Institute, a movie theater, and several churches. When trains were allowed to run again, the wounded were transported to nearby towns and cities.

The city’s water reservoir was also destroyed. The loss of clean water, coupled with the loss of power, severe flooding, and raging fires, severely hampered the city’s recovery in the aftermath of the storm. Dozens of bodies had to be manually extracted from Gum Pond where they had been thrown by the tornado. Thousands were left without homes. A week after the tornado had touched down, roads were finally cleared enough for cars. Workers came from outside communities to help in the recovery effort, and the long process of rebuilding homes and businesses began. As the “First TVA City,” Tupelo and its rebuilding efforts attracted considerable national attention.