Yet Another Reminder of the Tornado of 1957

From time to time over the years we've revisited the tornado of 1957, which, at the time, was easily the best-documented twister in history. There's even a whole website devoted to the F3 that killed 10 and "carved a sixteen mile path through Oak Cliff and West Dallas over a...

By Robert Wilonsky

May 23, 2011

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From time to time over the years we've revisited the tornado of 1957, which, at the time, was easily the best-documented twister in history. There's even a whole website devoted to the F3 that killed 10 and "carved a sixteen mile path through Oak Cliff and West Dallas over a time span of about forty minutes."

A Friend of Unfair Park sends word this afternoon that it makes an appearance today on Slate, which, in the wake of the devastation in Joplin that has claimed more than 100, notes that "more people have died in tornadoes in 2011 than in the past seven years combined."

Slate has posted a slide show titled "Run for Cover: A century of tornado photography," and its photo of Dallas in '57 is the same one you see above, which comes from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's photo archives and appeared as part of its 50th-anniversary look back at the tornado of April 2, 1957. As part of its retrospective, the National Weather Services noted, "If the Dallas tornadoes of 1957 were to occur today, more significant damage would likely occur, with the possibility of catastrophic loss of life. These tornadoes are a reminder that major metropolitan areas are not immune their destructive forces."

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