50 Years.....

Strong Dim Memories

Yup, that's me.  A month or so before the event.

Dad and mom were from Oklahoma.  Mom was born in 1933, dad in 1934.  Their families stuck out the dust bowl in south west OK.  They grew up without most of what we consider necessities.  Indoor plumbing, air conditioning or central heat.  Being farmers, they learned weather signs.

On May 11, 1970, dad was watching the weather close.  I think we had a 10% chance of thunderstorms that night.  We lived where a weather phenomenon called the dry line exists.  Weather pops up along this dry line, that stretches about the length of the border between Texas and New Mexico.  It dances all over up there, moving east then west, spawning storms in the late afternoon.

Dad spotted a big storm moving around, and it seemed to go in a circle.  He was outside a lot that evening, not just to puff on a cigarette, either.  About 9:30 pm, he came blowing in the door, and hollered out for everyone to "git under the house!"  In mom and dad's closet there was a hole for getting under the house, and dad popped that open and mom threw down some quilts.  I grabbed a few plastic world war 1 airplanes I had, and my older sister struggled to get dressed.  She had been in the tub.  When dad hollered, the energy level started peaking in the house.  Not just that night, but always.  We were high stepping to get where he wanted us.  The tornado was letting down over us.  We lived close to 34th and Quaker.  It was a straight line from there NE across Jones Stadium to downtown, the path of the tornados.

Mom had a 7 month old, and a 4 year old along with me and my sister.  I remember we had a battery radio with us.  Being under the floor was pretty neat, but a bit scary.  The wind was lashing the little trees around the house, and the lightning was fierce.  Rain was coming down like fire hoses were feeding it.  The electricity went off, and I remember distinctly, the advertisement for Alexander's Jewelry Store.  it was the theme from 2001, A Space Odysey.  When I here that music today, I get a bit unsettled.  KFYO was on saying something about debris blowing down the street, and it went off the air.  We had some kind of light under there, probably that long smooth Ray-O-Vac that dad carried.  Dad looked concerned after the radio station went off the air...  There was a tremendous flash and an instant boom of thunder, it scared my older sister, she jerked up, and impaled her scalp on an exposed nail.  I guess we all have hard heads.

Eventually the wind subsided and the rain started tapering off.  We eased back out of the hole.  The radio station was back on the air, and they ordered all "off duty police and firemen to report to duty." 

A sight I'm very familiar with.

Dad was a patrolman on the LPD, and he took off about 10 pm and was gone for 24 hours straight, digging bodies out of the rubble.  According the video linked below, dad was on SAR duty.

The top half of the Great Plains Life building was lifted and curtains were blown from one room to another, across the wall.  It was set back down, just a bit off of square.  The big eagle on Lubbock (Plains?) National Bank took flight and was never seen again. The temporary morgue was in my junior high gym.  I used to tell my class mates the weird stains on our lunch room tables were from that time.  I may have been correct.

The after action report was interesting.

Dad bought a bunch of cinder blocks from destroyed gas stations, and I spent my summer, fall, winter and spring, cleaning block for reuse on our back yard cellar.  We got that done the next summer, and I spent countless hours staring at the ceiling, listening to anti-aircrat fire, or artillery, or navy guns, or bombing raids, until the danger passed and we went to our own beds in the wee hours of the morning.

We bought some land south of town, and I helped dad disassemble houses that had been damaged in the tornado.  We were gonna build a house and move out of town.  I learned a lot about old carpentry methods.  Dad had me clean the old lumber during the summer, fall, winter and spring.  Things were looking up until our neighbor down there lost control of a trash fire and burned up ALL the wood I had worked so hard on.  Dad sold the land a while after that.  We wound up moving north of town, not south.

And I got a first hand education in atmospheric science, watching weather develop.  Learning when to run to the 'fraidy hole.  It is still the best place to be when the sky gets dark, and the wall clouds develop.  I had planned on being a weather man.  Even got to interview the NWS director for Lubbock.  I couldn't afford to go to school at A&M.  They were the only school with a degree in ATMO and I didn't rate a scholarship.  Back then you had to hit several marks to be admitted to college.  So, I went to Texas Technical, majoring in electronics.

I found an official video from the EOC perspective.  I was struck by how different media operates today, as opposed to 50 years ago.  I swapped buttons, name plate and badge on those grey wool police uniforms for years.  Dad had one of those helmets in his closet, along with the grey Stetson they issued for one or two years right next to it.

I distinctly remember that bumper sticker all over town.  "Lucky Me!  I Live In Lubbock."

This is the NSW view in 2010.  It has a good explanation of the dry line.

Here is a Texas Tech project from about 2015.

Lubbock was quite divided along cultural lines.  There were distinct areas of town where folks lived.  The Mexican-American and Black areas were hit hard by the tornado, and as a result, the families that were displaced moved in to open housing all across town. 

Those were interesting times.  I remember it as a time when men were men.  And they did what had to be done, regardless of the risk, because it was the right thing to do.

Simplicity of youth, I guess.