This black-and-white photograph reveals a startling view of the killer tornado of Ruskin Heights. The date: May 20, 1957. The storm ripped through three communities south of Kansas City, Missouri on a sultry evening. This F5 twister carved out a path seventy-one-miles long. In its wake, forty-four people lay dead, with another five hundred injured.

One eyewitness later recalled seeing a greenish-gray cloud "turning violently." "Tentacles were reaching down out of the cloud and bouncing off the ground," he said, and "as the tornado developed, five and up to ten tentacles came down together and joined. We kept watching as they formed into a black shaft close to the ground. The next thing we saw was parts of a nearby filling station and motel flying up."

This firsthand account, and many others, were collected by social historian Carolyn Glenn Brewer and appear in Caught in The Path, the first book to take a comprehensive look at the toll of this disaster through the tales of dozens of survivors and the author's personal memories.