Lubbock's deadliest tornado gave rise to modern weather technology — and a new memorial

Oct 9

The first ever multi-vortex F5 tornado on record spurred life-saving advancements in weather science.

The time was 9:46 p.m. Night had fallen, and the flat plains around Lubbock, Texas were in chaos. Already, one small tornado had touched down east of the city, spotted by a local police officer, but it was a small thing that danced away from the homes and property.

The town breathed a sigh of relief, certain the severe weather had passed them by. Tornado warning sirens had just been introduced in 1970, but not in the west Texas town, so when the second tornado roared out of the sky — this one nearly a mile and a half wide — no one was prepared or warned about the devastation charging towards the heart of the city.

That second tornado was full of rage, and it spawned multiple vortexes that only amplified that rage. A detailed account from the National Weather Service lays out how the tornados laid waste to parts of Lubbock.

In its 15-mile path, more than 8,800 homes were battered and 430 were completely destroyed. Families scrambled to rescue loved ones. The downtown streets of Lubbock were coated in glass with 80 percent of the plate glass windows shattered.

Six-year-old Patricia Mora, her 8-year-old sister Angela and 2-year-old Kathy were together when that destruction tore apart their home and their lives. Angela wrapped her body around little Kathy when that tornado came for them. She folded the toddler under her as a wall fell on her with crushing weight.

“My sister Angela was only 8, and she was a hero,” Patricia said. “She shielded our sister Kathy from the rubble (when the whole wall fell down.) Angela sacrificed her life that night to save another as she was crushed by the debris resulting from the tornado.”

On May 11, 1970, two tornadoes touched down in Lubbock, one a monster that is now considered the first F5 level twister in modern recorded history.

From that monstrous destruction came scientific advancements that spurred such life-saving developments as the concrete storm shelter, the Fujita scale, advanced forecasting technology and more, according to the NWS. Fifty-one years after that catastrophic event, Lubbock unveiled the 1970 Lubbock Tornado Memorial at Lubbock National Bank Park this past May to honor not only the lives lost, but the knowledge that came out of the tragedy.

Rising from the destruction

The tornado’s path through Lubbock was eight and a half miles long and a mile and a half wide. It churned relentlessly through the area and devastated communities in its path, particularly the mostly-Hispanic Guadalupe neighborhood. In its wake, 26 were killed and more than 1,500 people were injured. While the storm twisted out death and destruction, it also gave rise to the modern tornado and weather technology as it is today.

“This was the tornado Dr. Ted Fujita used to create and to theorize his Fujita scale, which is used to determine the destructive capacity of cataclysmic wind events, particularly tornadoes,” said Texas Tech historian Monte Monroe. “That’s where we get the F1 Through F5 scale, and now the EF 1 through 5 scale. The 1970 tornado was the first documented multi-vortex F5 Fujita Scale tornado in history.”

Considered the “father” of modern tornado research, Dr. Theodore “Ted” Fujita was among the researchers who studied the storm that hit Lubbock, proving the existence of multiple vortexes within a tornado based on the Lubbock incident.

The Fujita Scale wasn’t the only technology born from the destruction. The Texas Legislature and Governor Preston Smith had granted University status to Texas Tech in 1969, and after the tornado, Texas Tech President Grover Murray created the Institute for Disaster Research (IDR).

The researchers wasted little time going to work.

Founding director of the IDR, Dr. Joseph Minor’s research changed the national building codes to require building standards regarding windborne debris. Dr. Kishor Mehta also helped develop wind-related building codes and together with Dr. Jim McDonald, built upon Dr. Fujita’s research to create the Enhanced Fujita Scale. McDonald also designed and built the first “tornado cannon” to test building materials against storm damage.

Texas Tech researcher, Dr. Ernst Kiesling created the first above-ground residential storm shelter and developed the National Storm Shelter Association, earning him the nickname of “Father of the Safe Room.”

Dr. Richard Peterson helped create IDR’s Wind Science and Engineering (WISE) Research Center at Texas Tech University, which positioned the university as an international leader in disaster and wind-related research.

Today, that 51-year-old tornado is still shaping new weather forecasting and weather-related technology.

“All this research will also help us with respect to mitigation. Storms are going to become stronger, and we need more mitigation. We need more shelters and ideas of how to protect people. Information from all this work that's been done from that Lubbock tornado will help inform those processes,” said Ron Burgess, research fellow at the University of Oklahoma and member of the Cooperative Institute for Weather Research and Operations, formerly of the National Severe Storms Laboratory.

Designing a storm

In 2018, Lubbock citizens formed a committee to build the memorial. Originally planned for a May 2020 dedication during the 50th anniversary of the twister, COVID-19 delayed construction. Instead, the city held the dedication of the 1970 Lubbock Tornado Memorial on May 11, 2021.

“There is no other city in the United States that has a memorial this significant to tornadoes,” said Monroe.

Stephen Faulk of MWM Architects Inc., designed the memorial using a hand-drawn map Dr. Fujita drew of the path of the destructive storm.

“The longest wall on the west speaks to the tornado and the wall on the east side speaks to the recovery,” said Faulk. “A tornado like that could have obliterated a town like Lubbock. But we're a pretty tough group of people out here - tough as nails.”

Even then-President Richard Nixon was amazed at the tenacity of the sunbaked, wind-blown residents of Texas, saying in a letter to then-Mayor Jim Granberry, “The splendid response of the citizens of your city should give encouragement to every city and town in America.”

Two 19-foot black granite paneled walls twist and wind through the park, representing the path of the twisters. Along the walls are the 26 names of those who lost their lives that night, quotes from survivors and the story of the gargantuan recovery efforts that ensued.

The ground of the Memorial represents Lubbock’s city streets in 1970, giving visitors a visual map of where the destruction occurred. Four artistic sculptures of damaged lamp posts, designed by Maine artist Aaron T. Stephan, stand along the memorial walls, representing the stormy emotions from that night.

At the east end of the Memorial, a single broken utility pole stands alone.

“That pole illustrates the torture a tornado can put things through as it passes by,” Faulk said. “That came from the actual wreckage from that night.”

The future of weather

The 1970 Lubbock tornado may have been the first and largest tornado recorded at the time, but it wasn’t the last. Bigger, scarier storms, like the F6 that tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore in 1999 (and then again in 2013), packed even more destructive force, and many experts worry that a changing climate could cause weather events to be much more dramatic.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States has seen 308 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages reached or exceeded $1 billion. The total cost of these 308 events exceeds $2.085 trillion.

So far this year, as of Oct. 8, 18 weather disaster events ranging from floods and severe storms to wildfires and extreme winter, have caused the death of 538 people and losses exceeding $1 billion.

In Lubbock, the memory of what a severe storm can do remains, not just with a new memorial, but in the minds of those who lived through it.