[Granville-Hough] 4 Feb 2009 - Calvary Tornadoes

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:19:08 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: CalvaryTornadoes - 4 Feb 2009

With regard to local tornados, Nephew Jack Neville who spent many years 
as a professional diver, has seen tornadoes at land and sea, with the 
funnels on land and the waterspouts at sea. They are always an awesome 
display of the power of natural forces. Fortunately, most of us can stop 
what we are doing and seek cover and wait out the danger. Sometimes we 
cannot. I believe I remember a story of Uncle Tom Richardson driving 
through a storm on the Gulf Coast and winding up with four flat tires. 
Either it was his car or that of someone else he saw when he stopped at 
a service station. Strange things happen.

Calvary Community Tornado. Several of Lazy Fed Sullivan’s family are 
buried in Calvary Presbyterian Church Cemetery, which reminds me of a 
very local tornado which struck the McNair/Burris homes across the 
railroad and up McNair Hill from the church. My brother, Dueward Hough, 
heard about the tornado; and we walked down to Calvary to see if we 
could help. Or, it may have been morbid curiosity. Anyway we got there a 
few hours after the event and saw the damage. I believe it was one of 
the Burris homes where I saw one of those things which can never be 
explained. The front porch had been sheared off, then pitched over the 
house into the back yard. I have wondered all my life how the wind 
forces could do such a thing, but there it was. There had been no loss 
of life, but I am sure church attendance was up at Calvary for several 
weeks. People who had no storm pits probably began to look for a 
suitable place to build one.

My brother, Clifford Hough, had a different solution to the storm pit 
problem. He built his home with a cellar, equipped with sump pumps to 
take care of any water seepage. He used the longleaf pine logs from the 
Frank Ware home as the pillars to support the house and its floor. In 
case of a violent storm, he simply went down into his cellar. It remains 
a very functional home, and the basement has probably been used many 
times as a storm refuge. The storm cellar did not however protect from 
lightning strikes which frequently came with local storms. At least once 
the home was struck by lightning and the force of the bolt hit the 
ground next to the house and tore up the ground. I saw this damage 
later, and I think the house was protected by lightning rods with a 
cable connecting to the rods to the ground.

My brother Dueward was living in the original Hough home, which we had 
rebuilt. There was a functional barn nearby which was hit by lightning 
during a local storm, and this bolt knocked off a whole side of the corn 
storage crib. There was a big oak tree, which was a wonderful shade in 
front of the house, and we always joked that it was to catch the 
lightning so it would not hit the house. It failed to do its job when 
the lightning bolt hit the barn.

The entire community had a working rule, "never draw water when a 
thunderstorm is in sight." The wells were drilled down 100 feet to the 
underground aquifer and you drew water in a bucket and windlass. The 
well of course had curbs which went down to the water and made a perfect 
conduit for lightning seeking an electrical ground. One of our Sharon 
Community neighbors was killed while drawing water, and we read about 
similar deaths in other places. If you needed water during a storm, just 
put a washtub under the eave of your house and get all you wanted. It 
tasted better, too, as it had no minerals. I always enjoyed sharing a 
drink from a washtub with our collie dog /Sharp./