Cheyenne, WY Tornado Damage, July 1979

I remember that day like it was just yesterday. I lived in Orchard Valley on Blossom Court, which is way on the south end of Cheyenne. It was my 7th birthday that day, and it just so happened my mother threw my bday party that same day. I can remember just opening my front door (my front door faced north) during my party and seeing what i thought looked like a building on fire (I was 7 and really didn't know what a tornado looked like cause I'd never seen one.) I remember telling my mom, "There's something on fire!" My mother stopped what she was doing to look and immediately cried, "That's not a fire, thats a tornado, everybody downstairs!" So we all shuffeled down to the basement, both parents and kids. I can remember the mass hysteria amonst the kids that were at my party. They were all really scared and crying, but I didn't. I was pretty calm considering. Some of the parents wanted to stand out infront of our house to take pictures (really stupid, cause tornados can be far off and then right there at a blink of an eye.) Several days after, one of my parents came home with a framed black and white picture of this tornado upclose. Someone they worked with had given it to them to give it to me cause it was my bday and all. That was an interesting day for me, and the most memorable bday I have had since. Just thought I'd share.

wow that is what happend when the tornato hit cheyanne!!!!!!!!!!!!1

That is so strange. You never know, I guess.

I was a junior at East High School at the time. We lived in Buffalo Ridge (parents are still in the same house). I was working a construction job that summer and I was working at a different house in Buffalo Ridge; I was there up to about 30 minutes before the tornado came through town.

The tornado went right through our neighborhood.

There are links to a few pics of my house below. In pic #2 you can see the path of the tornado off into the distance. (That's my dad on the roof)

The day after the tornado I went back to the house that I was working at the day before. (It was a brand new house not yet occupied). The entire house was gone! Not one stick of lumber left. I'm glad I didn't leave that house 30 minutes later than I did!

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd172/tomdotreed/cheyenne_tornado_1.j...

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd172/tomdotreed/cheyenne_tornado_2.j...

I grew up in the same area you did, as a matter of fact just across mountain road on Roundtop Ct., i was only 2 when the tornado took the hosue. My parents house is whats left of the one to the right of the green one still standing. They rebuilt and are still living in the same house. They had to rebuild from the foundation up.

I was 13 years old and participating in a summer gymnastics program at the elementary school there in Buffalo Ridge. I remember working out and learning some moves when it occurred to me that it was getting very dark for the time of day it was.

I look out the window (which are high elementary school gym windows, you know the kind) and the sky was a weird greenish black. No kidding. I tell my friend and the instructor and we all decided "Woah! Lets go check it out!" We open one of the side doors and I tell you...what greeted us was surreal. I will never forget it. The sky was not only black it was moving...and it had boards and tree branches, and roofs and all sorts of debri moving through it. Slow motion, way up high (and all the way to the ground too once we closed out mouths from being agape and realized what it was we were staring at) and it was the most amazingly nightmarish thing I've ever seen.

Today's Hollywood CGI can't even capture what I saw and what I will never forget.

Once we realized it was a tornado that was bearing right down on us (and it was huge from it's humble beginnings out at the AFB to the time it roared across the edge of town out to Buffalo Ridge and flattened a good half of that section) we booked it to the bomb shelter portion of the school. Yes, the bomb shelter. The same one that we used to have drills for and go to during the cold war years and threat of nuclear attack. Sort of glad we had those drills that day.

We knew right where to go.

I was five when the tornado struck. The tornado skipped our apartment complex on Mountain Rd and stuck the townhome right behind the complex. I was playing outside right before it hit. I though it was an earthquake as I was not familiar with tornados. I remember seeing this huge black thing spinning debris, taking out houses in Buffalo Ridge. I watched this from my Window in awe.

My family lived on Hickory Place. I remember the day well. I left the pool next to Buffalo Ridge en route to home via Windmill Road and saw what I thought was a huge fire, until I noticed giant boards swirling around the middle. I ran back to the pool, though at some point the water was removed from the pool. The tornado cut a huge swath 5 houses north of ours. I feel lucky I was not hurt though many were.

I was about a year old at the time, so I definitely don't remember it. However, I do know (from my parent's discussion of it) that I too lived on Hickory, and that the tornado supposedly just missed us.

So I'd guess we were neighbors. Remember anyone named Roper?

My very good friend, Jim, lived near South Greeley Hwy & College Drive, on the south side of Cheyenne. From his vantage point, he also described what he saw as looking like a huge fire on the north side of town.