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P
alm
S
unday
T
ornadoes
| 50
th
A
nniversary
30
| Saturday, April 11, 2015 The Goshen News
highway at a crazy angle.
The scene from the top of
the hill overlooking the junc-
tion was one of utter ruin.
The truck stop where Rich-
ard Gresso fixed eggs and
hash browns and pumped
gasoline was simply wiped
off the face of the earth.
The woods on the south-
west corner was a tangle of
twisted trees. Homes to the
west along U.S. 20 were like
crushed matchboxes.
The tornado had torn the
lives from a man and five
children at this location.
Everyone knew by Mon-
day morning that the heav-
ily settled areas in Dunlap,
Midway Mobile Home
Court and Jefferson Town-
ship had been hard hit. It
wasn’t until you drove along
U.S. 20 and looked over to
the south that you realized
that farm homes, barns and
outbuildings were leveled,
too. It was a forlorn scene
as solitary figures poked
through the wreckage.
Another scene
National
Guardsmen
were also on duty in the
Elkhart area, rerouting traf-
fic in a firm but courteous
manner.
One area which was hard
hit, but didn’t make the
headlines was the Misha-
waka Road strip running
northwest from the Con-
cord Township School.
These substantial homes,
many of them brick and
limestone, were destroyed.
Like other areas, cars were
simply twisted into balls of
battered metal.
It will take a long, long
time to clear up the wreck-
age from the twisters.
“We are concerned about
reaching a lot of farmers in
an effort to give them assis-
tance,” said Sheriff Woody
L. Caton from disaster head-
quarters at Dunlap fire sta-
tion this morning.
“These farmers need
help. Their barns and
homes are down. Cattle
need to be milked, hay
restacked in addition to
general cleanup,” Sheriff
Caton said and added that a
number of farmers reported
“sightseers driving by, but
not stopping to help.”
“Our department, state
and city police, firemen,
volunteers and the National
Guard have things pretty
well under control now
at Midway Mobile Home
Court and Dunlap. All major
roads are open, but we will
close them again if sightse-
ers become a problem,” the
sheriff said.
The sheriff said that any-
one wishing to help farmers
or knowing of some farmer
needing assistance should
telephone Dunlap Fire Sta-
tion at either 875-5865 or
875-9962 or report there in
person.
“We have had some re-
ports of looting immediately
after the tornadoes struck.
It was not widespread and
stopped when officers and
others arrive on the scene,”
the sheriff said.
Tangle
Continued from page 2
great work provided by the
care givers.
About midnight I was
saddened to see several
bodies from the U.S. 20 and
Ind. 15 storm. They had
been stripped of much of
their clothing and were
completely peppered by
sand or gravel in the air.
This made the tragedy even
more real to me. I recall
going home in the middle
of the night to freshen up
and change clothes. I’m
not sure about sleep.
The next morning start-
ed very early in the news-
room, and getting accurate
information was difficult
because sheriff’s deputies
were still on the job. City
aidmen provided reports of
their services. Pictures told
a vivid story.
There were all sorts of
personal stories from survi-
vors of the storm that killed
49 people in Elkhart Coun-
ty and 16 in the tornado
that devastated the Shore
community in nearby
LaGrange County. More
than 300 people were
injured in the storms.
Covering the tornadoes
continued daily with more
and more reports uncov-
ered from survivors. One
man was driving a car on a
county road northeast of
Goshen, and the tornado
lifted his car above the utili-
ty wires, and he then float-
ed back to earth uninjured.
Some injury reports were
unbelievable. Some houses
were blown away and some
simply exploded. In one sit-
uation, family members
reached the basement but
the father was at the head
of the stairway and blown
away. These tragic inci-
dents kept reaching the
newsroom for several days
and we were busy checking
them out. Some were trag-
ic, some were of miraculous
survivals.
Eleven days later we
printed a special follow-up
edition of our storm cover-
age when more facts could
be confirmed. It included a
photo of President Lyndon
Johnson standing in the
rubble in Dunlap. Also
included was a photo of the
combined funeral in the
Shipshewana gym for eight
victims of the Shore com-
munity twister.
All of us on The News
staff became reporters of
the storm for several days.
It was a sad time, and a
major challenge to provide
our best coverage for our
readers, who wanted to
know the facts. We did our
best to provide them, and I
think it was a shining hour
for our newspaper at a very
dark time.
Bob Conrad worked at the
Goshen News for nearly five
decades. He became manag-
ing editor in 1972, a posi-
tion he held until his retire-
ment in 1991.
Conrad
Continued from page 2
Courtesy ofthe ELkhart COunty historical museum
This is the first page of the Elkhart County Sheriff De-
partment’s official case report. To see all 31 pages,
visit our web site at goshennews.com
crowd. As he considered
either taking everyone
outside to a lower grassy
area behind the building
to lie down or to a slightly
lower large room of the
building and stay inside.
He settled on staying
inside.
Having not understood
what my dad was saying, I
became very frightened as
I saw people getting up
and moving quickly
toward the rear doors of
the room. Finally, we
stopped singing and it was
every child for himself as
we all ran and pushed
through the crowd to find
our parents!
Things happened quick-
ly from that point. We
arrived in the dark room,
were instructed to open all
the windows wide, to
crawl under anything and
lay flat on the floor. Every-
one complied and as the
freight train-like sound got
louder, people were sing-
ing, praying and crying
out for God’s help.
At this point my father
tucked me and my mom
under a piano and, togeth-
er with my older sister, he
slipped out a nearby door
to see how close and
which direction the torna-
do was headed. That
became a problem when
they tried to come back in
but the door was locked.
From this point my
memory only involves
sounds. My eyes were
glued shut as the sound of
10 trains rumbled closer.
The cries of others mixed
with my own expressions
of anguish and concern:
for my brother who was
out ... somewhere in the
area, the banging on the
door of my dad and sister
wanting desperately to
come in and my mother
praying. Then my dad was
by my side saying, “It’s
over. The storm has
passed. God saved us!”
There was a breeze
through the open windows
and everyone was laugh-
ing and crying and thank-
ing God for keeping us
safe!
Sirens were screaming
outside that drew us to the
windows. We could see
that although our church
building had been in the
direct path of the tornado,
at the last possible second,
it made a zigzag. It went
into the grassy area that
we had almost gone to and
then back to its original
course. It sucked the roof
off of the tool shed and
the roof was nowhere to
be seen. But we were
spared!
My brother had been
driving along U.S. 33
when he saw double tor-
nadoes heading toward
him. He saw cars ahead of
him be lifted off the
ground so he pulled over
and dove into the ditch.
He heard the same roar
that we heard as the twist-
er traveled near him. And
he, too, was spared.
The next day my father
found a huge I-beam
shoved into the front yard
of the church building as a
dollar bill came floating to
his feet. One side of it was
perfectly normal and the
other side was completely
sand blasted. Such unusu-
al things happen with
these kinds of extreme
weather.
For days and weeks
after the storm I would go
with my dad to visit the
people who lived in neigh-
borhoods that were
destroyed. Many were
searching for belongings
and anything of sentimen-
tal value. We heard story
after story of amazing
ways that people escaped
tragedy, but lost every-
thing.
I wasn’t very old, but I
certainly saw clearly that
God, in His infinite wis-
dom and mercy, had visit-
ed us that day in a way
that I would never forget.
Rachel Bracker Jackson
now lives in Pennsylvania.
Bracker
Continued from page 8
