Wheelersburg, OH Tornado Damage, Apr 1968

TORNADOES IN 2 STATES KILL 13.

From Wire Dispatches.
Death-dealing and destructive tornadoes swirled crazily through Ohio and Kentucky yesterday, claiming at least 13 lives and causing damage in the millions of dollars.
State police and hospitals put the number of injured at nearly 200. Hundreds were left homeless.
Hardest hit in Ohio was the little Scioto County community of Wheelersburg, where at least six persons were dead and 75 injured. Ohio recorded two more fatalities, one in Clermont and one in Brown County.
Known dead in Wheelersburg were MRS. JOHN ADKINS, 63, LINDA UNDERWOOD, 15, WALTER OCKERMAN, 67, and GEORGE LAMBERT, 84, all of Wheelersburg. CLYDE AVERY, 49, Ironton, and JOE CHATFIELD, 59, Franklin Furnace.
At daybreak today rescue workers began digging through rubble looking for more victims.
"It'll take two or three days for us to find all the victims," Deputy ELWOOD WOOTEN said. "There has to be some that we don't know about yet."
The killer tornado churned into this community of 2,600 at about 4 p.m. yesterday after it first appeared it would bypass the area and slip into Kentucky.
"I saw it coming up the river," a woman told RUSSELL BURNS, JR., chief deputy. "It looked like it was going to go over the ridge into Kentucky. Then it bounced off the ridge and headed toward me," BURNS quoted the woman as saying.
A 10-year-old Wheelersburg girl was in critical condition in Columbus' Children's Hospital today, where she was rushed after the twister lifted her home off the foundation and dumped it into a heap across the street.
BRENDA UNDERWOOD suffered cuts over her entire body "like she went through glass," according to officials at a Portsmouth hospital, from where she was transferred.
Her sister, LINDA, 15, was killed in the disaster.
The two girls were alone in the house after being let out of school early because of tornado danger.
The mother of the girls, MRS. RICHARD UNDERWOOD, 35, was driving away from the house, when she spotted the twister and turned to come back.
About 100 yards from her house, she saw it lifted and demolished by the tornado.
In Falmouth, Ky., Mayor MAX GOLDBERG estimated about one fourth of the city's population of 2,550 were without homes. Four bodies, including those of a 10-month-old girl and a young boy, were recovered last night. Hospitals treated 91 persons, including children cut by flying glass when the twister hit an elementary school.
Another death was reported near Augusta, Ky.
"We were going through a taste of death right there," reported HENRY DANCE, 77, a Falmouth resident who was at home with his wife.
"It sounded like a clap of thunder," he said, "and then the roof began to fall. Holding on to each other we fell down by the divan and part of the floor fell on us. The Lord saved us, that's all."
A residential area of about six square blocks bore the brunt of the storm in Falmouth. The business section of town was largely spared.
A 13-year-old boy, JEFFREY LIMING, was killed, his skull crushed, when a tornado slammed into his home at Goshen, Ohio, and a young girl was critically injured when her home collapsed at Chillicothe.
At Dover, Ohio, a small community of 500, 30 homes were leveled and the rest were heavily damaged. A 500-pound church bell was lifted as the First Christian Church collapsed and carried two blocks away where it slammed into a parked car.
Tornado damage also was reported in southern Kentucky at Nicholasville. The U.S. Weather Bureau reported twisters also touched down in Big Rapids, and Frontier, Mich., where one person was injured, and Smithville, Tenn.
The other Ohio fatality was recorded in Ripley, where an 83-year-old woman, HETTIE SCHUMACHER, died when her trailer home was picked up and rolled over by a tornado.
The weather Bureau of Cleveland reported that a funnel cloud was sighted seven miles south of Tiffin at 7 p.m. yesterday. The funnel was spotted by the sheriff.
Another funnel cloud was reported south of Attica in Seneca County, just east of the Fremont interchange of the Ohio Turnpike in Sandusky County.
In Newtonsville, a Clermont County community 20 miles east of Cincinnati, an estimated 100 structures, homes, businesses, barns were either damaged or destroyed.
Fire Chief JAMES R. SCHROTH of Ripley estimated damage in the community at $100,000, while the damage toll was expected to range between $2 - $3 million in Falmouth.
"It looked like a big black rubber ball," said JESS NORTHERN, Blanchester, Clermont County. "It would come down and then go up again and then go down again. I never saw anything like it in my life."
RALPH WEAVER, 48, a used car dealer in Falmouth, saw the twister from a two block distance.
"I saw a black funnel come down from out of the overcast and roofs started flying. Cars on the street were smashed all to pieces and fire was jumping down from the electric wires."
"It happened so fast we didn't have sense enough to be afraid," said FRANCIS RAPP, who along with another man was working on a roof in Clermont County when they spotted a tornado.
"It looked harmless from a distance," he added.
In addition to the tornadoes severe storms also lashed areas of Ohio, with winds estimated at 70 miles per hour reported near Fremont at 8 p.m. last night. Hail was also reported near Fremont.
The bureau said "numerous reports of heavy rain and small hair were received by the Weather Bureau as the storms moved across southern Ohio.
The bureau said "limited allclears were issued" to Seneca, Huron and Lorain counties at 9:40 p.m. Cuyahoga at 10:35 p.m. and all but Ashtabula County at 11:20 p.m.
"By midnight, the storms were weakening and moved east of Astabula County and the final all clear was issued at 12:15 a.m. today," the Weather Bureau at Cleveland reported.
Lightning struck the roof of a five-story warehouse in Ravenna, triggering a four-alarm blaze that forced the Portage County community to call for assistance from Cuyahoga Falls, Kent and Mantua fire departments.
Ravenna Fire Chief JAMES BATSCH said some 50 men battled the flames for about four hours before bringing them under control.

Chronicle Telegram Elyria Ohio 1968-04-24
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!