The 1970 Lubbock Tornado

Lubbock's tornado came at the end of a violent spring on the South Plains. On April 17 and 18, 1970, twisters ran along two 175-mile corridors from Whitharral to Clarendon, killing twenty-three and injuring 150; sixteen died when a funnel struck the resort village of Sherwood Shores on Greenbelt Lake. On May 11 the Lubbock storm turned cars into missiles and stripped facades from buildings of fifteen and twenty stories. In the storm area 8,800 structures were damaged, and Texas Tech, outside that count, took about half a million dollars in minor damage.

What the plaque says

The 1970 Lubbock Tornado The major tornado that struck Lubbock on May 11, 1970 was one of the most destructive in American history. That evening there was an outbreak of thunderstorms with strong winds and hail. An initial tornado touched down East of Mackenzie Park at 8:15 p.m., traveling northeast through a sparsely populated part of the city. A second tornado formed at 9:35 p.m., near Texas Tech University, tracking northeast with a path of destruction nearly two miles wide. The central business district, industrial areas and downtown residential areas, including the Guadalupe neighborhood, were the most heavily damaged. The funnel continued north-northeast to the Lubbock County Club and airport where it also caused damage before lifting back into the storm at approximately 10:10 p.m. The twisters caused more than $250 million in damage (more than $1.6 billion in today's dollars), affecting 25% of the city. It destroyed 1,100 homes and damaged 8,000 others. Hundreds of businesses were destroyed or severely damaged. Twenty-six people died and 1,755 people were injured. Cleanup and relief efforts commenced immediately. A state of emergency was declared, bottled water was shipped in, and the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum became a makeshift shelter. Many important advancements resulted from the tragic event. The city was given $59 million in federal relief, and a $13.6 million bond package helped fund the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center, George and Helen Mahon Library, city parks and the beginnings of the Canyon Lakes system. Dr. T.T. Fujita compiled data used to develop the Fujita Scale, which measures tornadic intensity by wind speed and resulting damage. Shortly after, Texas Tech University founded the institute for disaster research (now the National Wind Institute). While the 1970 Lubbock tornado was devastating, the response demonstrated the resilience of the city and its people. (2020)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Buddy Holly Center — 1.0 mi
  The city's museum of Buddy Holly and West Texas music in a 1928 railway depot, with the house where the Crickets worked on That'll Be the Day moved next door.
• National Ranching Heritage Center — 1.7 mi
  A Texas Tech outdoor museum where ranch houses, barns, windmills and a depot from across the ranching country were moved one by one onto a single park beside the campus.
• American Windmill Museum — 1.9 mi
  Lubbock's park of restored water-pumping windmills and early wind chargers, more than 70 of them turning outdoors and the rare ones under roof, with a megawatt-era turbine overhead.
• Lubbock Lake Landmark — 3.1 mi
  A bend of Yellow House Draw on Lubbock's north edge where digging has found nearly 12,000 years of people on the Southern High Plains, layer on layer, from Clovis to the 1880s.

More markers nearby

• The Fujita Scale — steps away
• Congressman George Mahon — 0.3 mi
• First Methodist Church of Lubbock — 0.4 mi
• Lubbock County — 0.6 mi