The Waco Tornado

This storm changed how Texas watched for tornadoes. Radar operators at Texas A&M saw a hook-shaped echo on the parent storm as it neared Waco, among the first times radar tied that shape to a tornado. Heavy rain hid the funnel from people on the street, and communications with the outlying areas failed. Slow, chaotic relief later pushed civilians and governments toward civil defense planning, and Texas backed twenty radar stations and a warning network. The Handbook of Texas gives 1,097 injured; the Wikipedia article gives 597. The plaque counts 346 buildings destroyed; the Handbook says 196.

What the plaque says

The Waco Tornado One of the most disastrous tornadoes in Texas history swept through downtown Waco on the afternoon of May 11, 1953, killing 114 people, destroying 346 buildings and creating property damage in excess of $50 million. Some of the worst devastation occurred at this site, where 32 employees of the R.T. Dennis Furniture Company died when the building collapsed. Aid to the city came in the form of volunteer and military rescue forces and donations totaling over $9 million. The rescue and restoration efforts that followed reflected Waco's strong sense of pride and community spirit. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dr Pepper Museum — 0.2 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 0.4 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 0.8 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Armstrong Browning Library — 1.1 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.

More markers nearby

• Brann-Davis Shootings — steps away
• Gerald-Harris Shooting — steps away
• The Courthouses of McLennan County — steps away
• Sheppard "Shep" Mullens — steps away