Coca Cola plant damage

Photo courtesy of the Plains Indians and Pioneers Museum
The Woodward, Okla. tornado of April 9, 1947 sheared off the top of this Coca Cola plant. The ferocious storm twisted windmill towers into corkscrew shapes, pitched bathtubs and cars into trees, and fired wheat straws into phone poles as it crashed through neighborhoods in the northwest part of town. Minutes before it hit, an impressive lightning show lit up the sky. Then came a long, low ceiling of black cloud that was so oppressively thick that one man said he thought he could have reached up and cut it with a knife. Then -- and by then it was too late to escape -- came the freight train roar of the actual tornado.

NOTE: The full story of the Woodward tornado appears in In the Shadow of the Tornado