[Granville-Hough] 3 Feb 2009 - Little Tornadoes

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:45:19 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: LittleTornadoes - 3 Feb 2009



Cousin Tom Richardson mentioned local 
tornadoes and disturbances in a general storm, and we did once 
experience one.  I suppose I was 8 or 9 years old, but it left a big 
impression on my memory.



LITTLE-BITSY LOCAL TORNADOES.  You could have a general hurricane with 
local disturbances  which amounted to a tornado, or you could have a 
pretty sharp local tornado, all your very own.  One Sunday morning my 
oldest brother, Harold Hough, was visiting home from Miss. A&M (now 
Miss. State Univ.), where he was in college.  We were having a leisurely 
breakfast listening to Harold, and my mother and father went on out to 
the barn to milk the cows.  It began to rain, then the wind picked up.  
We looked out to the west and it looked like the tall pine trees on the 
hill beyond the meadow were falling.  Harold took us to the strongest 
room in the house and put us next to the hallway in the center of the 
house.  We had no storm pit.  We learned later we were supposed to go 
into the log smokehouse.  Between the flurries of wind and rain, we 
could see the barn, where my mother and father were.  As we watched, the 
corrogated tin roofing of the barn began to blow away.  Our corncrib was 
on the southwest side, and that is where the roofing began to go.  We 
could do nothing except hope that our mother and father would be safe.  
They had actually gone to the far side of the log barn and had gotten 
into the strongest stable.  They were with the meanest mule we had (Old 
Blue), but he was so frightened he welcomed company.  They were quite 
safe  with Old Blue.
    When the storm passed on we could assess the damage.  Some of the 
corrogated tin sheets had hit the oak trees (in our hogpen) and tangled 
in the branches 30 feet up the tree.  When the trees were cut 20 years 
later, the tin sheets were still there.  The wind had ripped about a 
third of the covering from our corn crib, so we had to get that part 
re-covered.  No animals or persons were hurt, and we could find no one 
else in the community who had damage.  So tornadoes could be very local. 
    I got the smoke house well in mind in case it happened again.