The Dallas Tornado
| State | Total | County | County total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mississippi | 1 | Smith | 1 |
| Oklahoma | 6 | Bryan | 3 |
| Marshall | 2 | ||
| Murray | 1 | ||
| Texas | 12 | Dallas | 10 |
| Delta | 1 | ||
| Lamar | 1 | ||
| Totals | 19 | ||
At around 3:00 PM CST, the first tornadoes touched down north of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex area. At around 4:30 CST, a tornado touched down in southern Dallas County (south of modern-day Interstate 20) and traveled northward for about 45 minutes through the Dallas neighborhoods of Oak Cliff, Kessler Park, West Dallas (just west of Downtown Dallas) and Love Field before lifting over Bachman Lake (west of Dallas Love Field Airport) just after 5:00 PM CST. Ten people were killed and 200 others injured by the F3 tornado; damage was estimated at around $4 million (in 1957 dollars). Nearly 600 structures were damaged including over 100 homes and a dozen apartment buildings. Some businesses and schools were also damaged but the Parkland Memorial Hospital was narrowly spared by the tornado as was the Dallas Love Field Airport. Another tornado in Collin County north of the city also caused extensive damage.
The tornado was heavily documented and photographed by several eye-witnesses as it was clearly visible throughout most of its 17-mile path through residential and commercial areas of Dallas up to near Love Field Airport. At that time, it was the most observed tornado ever. A researcher from the Severe Weather Forecast Unit in Kansas City noticed that several old theories were proven false during the Dallas tornado. One of the theories was that all air and debris flow inward into the funnel and then upward, but on the outside edges of the funnel debris and people were even lifted. WFAA-TV in Dallas produced a 30-minute documentary about the tornado about one week later.
Another major tornado event struck the densely populated areas of the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex on March 28, 2000 when F3 tornadoes struck Downtown Fort Worth as well as Arlington killing at least 3 and injuring dozens of people while damaging or destroying several structures including several office towers. Additional tornadoes that touched down near the Metroplex area the following morning in Fort Worth and other areas but no additional fatalities were reported.
Read more about this topic: April 1957 Dallas Tornado Outbreak
Famous quotes containing the words dallas and/or tornado:
“A sceptic finds Dallas absurd. A cynic thinks the public doesn’t.”
—Clive James (b. 1939)
“The sumptuous age of stars and images is reduced to a few artificial tornado effects, pathetic fake buildings, and childish tricks which the crowd pretends to be taken in by to avoid feeling too disappointed. Ghost towns, ghost people. The whole place has the same air of obsolescence about it as Sunset or Hollywood Boulevard.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)