Tupelo, MS Tornado, Apr 1936

DEATH LIST MOUNTS

TUPELO, Miss., April 6. – (AP) – Tupelo’s list of identified dead from last night’s one hundred-mile-an-hour tornado passed the 125 mark today as a fleet of ambulances, trucks and motor cars streamed to hospitals and morgues with the victims.

Officers, taking into consideration the dead and reported dead from other Mississippi points, expected the list to run between 150 and 200 in Mississippi.

Mayor J. P. Nanny estimated that at least two hundred persons were killed in the Tupelo are and that five hundred to one thousand others were injured in the storm that struck with devastating swiftness last night.

The storm centered its greatest fury on this “little TVA” city of one thousand, the first town to utilize Muscle Shoals power.
Fire added to the horror of the twister in Tupelo.

With water pressure gone, power lines and gas connections twisted awry, firemen struggled against heavy odds to hold the flames of shattered dwellings in check while rescue workers toiled through the ruins, seeking the dead and injured.

The storm first struck La Crosse, Ark., killing five persons, then roared east into Tupelo, in northeast Mississippi, Suburban Willis Heights suffered worst.

Booneville, Miss., was next.

MANY TRAPPED
From there the storm rushed northeastwardly into Red Bay, Ala., then veered into the Armour mines, Harlan mines and cross bridge villages in the Tennessee hills near Columbia.

Mayor Nanny said dead and injured were being pulled from the wreckage of their homes for hours and it was feared many yet unreached were trapped and injured or killed.

Scores of Tupelo injured were carried to the nearby cities of Memphis, Tenn., Amory, Miss., Pontotec, Miss., and New Albany, Miss., for treatment.

A special relief train carrying twelve nurses, an anesthetist, hospital internes [sic] and medical equipment arrived in Tupelo early today from Memphis.

The business section of Tupelo was spared the full force of the blow and the Lee county courthouse, the Tupelo Military Institute and churches were turned quickly into morgues for the dead and hospitals for the injured.

The Tupelo city hospital was destroyed by the storm.

A heavy rain helped firemen to extinguish the storm-blown blazes. The downpour was fortunate because the city’s water tank had been blown down.

Reno Evening Gazette, Reno, NV 6 Apr 1936
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Transcribed by Jenni Lanham. Thank you, Jenni!