Knox City Resident Remember Deadly March 13, 1953 Tornado
By: Mechell Dixon
Updated: March 13, 2013
Few in Knox City know first hand how bad a day March 13, 1953 would become though most have heard the stories.
Glen Large was 11 years old and riding his bike when the F4 tornado tore through Knox City around 2 p.m. on Friday the 13th, 1953.
He says he remembers looking up at a wicked looking sky then coming across some weird things in the road as he pedaled home.
"I was running over trees and everything else and high line wires. I got down there and seen all that stuff torn up and it scared me then. I didn't know what it was,"
says Large.
Back in 1953, the warning system was not as sophisticated as todays and the tornado took many in this town by surprise.
While downtown remained untouched, that wasn't the case in other parts of Knox City because the storm started here on the southeast side of town and roared through leaving death and destruction in its wake.
The tornado caused $600,000 in damage in Knox City, injured 25 people and killed 17.
Bud Reynolds says he rode out the storm under his bed and remembers seeing the tragic outcome after it passed.
"Across the street from where I lived... the people who lived in the houses behind our house they were hanging in the trees," Reynolds recounts.
And much of the devastation was documented by this man who took out his camera and snapped dozens of pictures that circulated around the world.
"They went AP, Associated Press and they went all over the world. In fact,... at one time, I had a copy of Stars & Stripes that came from Japan. It was a military paper and they had used the picture... the one... the rear of the hospital where the pedal car was pushed up against the utility pole," explains Bill Baker, who survived the tornado.
So while these pictures are vivid reminders of what happened on March 13th, 1953, survivors say they will never compare to the images that are forever burned in their brains.
Following the tornado 130 bulldozers and 600 volunteers headed to Knox City to help survivors clean up.
And while time heal wounds survivors tell me it has not lessened the fear they experience when there's severe weather in town.
