Pine Bluff, AR Tornado, Jun 1947

ARKANSAS COUNTS 34 TORNADO DEAD; 21 ARE CHILDREN.

Fifteen Believed Missing in Area South of Pine Bluff Are Found in Hospital.

50 HOMES DESTROYED, 500 OTHERS DAMAGED.

National Red Cross Provides $20,000 for Relief – Search for Victims Is Halted.

Pine Bluff, Ark., June 2 – (AP) – Rehabilitation efforts supplanted rescue work late today in the plantation and bayou country soutr[sic] of here where an outsized tornado killed at least 34, injured hundreds and made additional hundreds homeless.

Search of the bayous and cypress brakes for additional victims came to a virtual halt as authorities reported that an approximately 15 persons believed missing had been found in the hospital or with friends.

Probing of waist-deep waters strewn with the storm's wreckage continued until mid-afternoon. Wading searchers found the body of JAMES F. WEST, plantation operator, near his demolished home in which his wife and two small children died during the storm which struck with little warning late yesterday.

Utility Linesman Killed.
Pine Bluff's for mortuaries reported they had received the bodies of 15 Negroes and 20 white persons. One of the latter was WILLIAM GALLOWAY, 35, Pine Bluff utility company linesman, whose skull was pierced by wind-whipped copper power line last night during rescue operations.

One of the the mortuaries reported that a Negro woman who had been included in the storm death total died of natural causes. When she was received at the funeral home along with storm victims, she was erroneously listed as a storm victim.

The tornado, which carved a 20-mile path through densely populated plantation country, came less than 24 hours after a similar storm had killed six, injured 25 and demolished three-fourths of the Oklahoma town of Leedey, a community of 600 population.

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