Memory Of The Week: Stories From The Deadly 1932 Tornado Outbreak

NORTHPORT, AL — Tuscaloosa County truck driver Grady Wheatley had been laid up in bed with a broken leg for a couple of months when dark, ominous clouds began to gather in the southwest in the early afternoon of March 21, 1932.

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Then, without warning, his family's modest home was ripped to shreds by a powerful tornado as it cut a path of death and destruction from western Tuscaloosa County into Northport. Fortunately, Wheatley did not receive a scratch, while his wife and two children only received slight injuries.

Around the same time, 12-year-old William Mayfield saved the lives of his niece and nephew — Jessie Louise, 2, and Willie James Singleton, 5.

Mayfield was later praised for his quick thinking as he ran with the two small children from their small home when he saw the tornado approaching. In a harrowing tale, Mayfield said he tucked the 2-year-old under his arm and grabbed the little boy by the hand, but when he saw that he couldn't outrun the deadly force of nature, Mayfield made the kids go to the ground and covered Jessie while holding onto Willie beside him.

"We laid there till it blowed over with all kinds of things flying over us, and we didn't get scratched," he told the Tuscaloosa News the day after the storm.

Others, like Fosters' storeowner Kinney Daniels, were not as fortunate.

Newspaper reports from the time said Daniels planned to give up his business on April 1, but never made it to that day as the tornado destroyed his store at the intersection of Fosters Ferry and Sanders Ferry roads. It took rescuers half an hour to recover Daniels from the mangled remnants of his business and he died shortly thereafter at Druid City Hospital — just one of 38 lives lost that day in Tuscaloosa County, although this number is disputed due to incomplete records.

Fast-forward to the present, though, and the last week saw many in Tuscaloosa reflect on the destructive April 27, 2011, tornado that cut an 80-mile path through three counties and killed 64 people.

The tributes were once again numerous on the anniversary of the 2011 tornado outbreak, which inspired us to take a deep dive into the second deadliest tornado to touch down in Tuscaloosa County.

A Day Of Destruction

Tuscaloosa County is certainly no stranger to deadly tornadoes.

Since the widespread incorporation of Doppler radar technology with the deployment of Next-Generation Radar (NEXRAD) in 1985, National Weather Service data says Alabama averages about 42 tornadoes a year and leads all states with an average of 41 people killed each year by the deadly storms.

When comparing Tornado Valley in the southwest to Dixie Alley in the southeast, experts say tornadoes in the southeast tend to be more deadly and destructive due to higher population densities, coupled with the prevalence of mobile homes.

It will come as a surprise to very few that spring is the most active season for tornadoes, with March and April in Alabama standing out as far and away the two months where the likelihood of a tornado is at its highest.

This idea surely was not lost on the people of Tuscaloosa County on that March day in 1932, but technology was still evolving as it related to advanced warnings of severe weather events.

Indeed, the late Alabama weather pioneer J.B. Elliott wrote in 2009:

"I have pondered over this hundreds of times over the years. In that 1932 disaster there was no such thing as a tornado warning, no radar, no satellite, no TV station, very few radio stations and very few phones in rural Alabama. If there had been all of the present day technology with instantaneous weather warnings and wall-to-wall coverage on radio and T.V., it is interesting to speculate how much the death and injury tolls could have been lessened. We hope and pray that we will never have another day like that."

Elliott said the March 21, 1932 tornado outbreak began around 3:30 p.m. on a Monday when more than one funnel cloud touched down in Demopolis, Linden and Faunsdale. By the time the storm crossed over into Tuscaloosa County, 36 people were dead in Marengo County and nearly 200 homes had been destroyed.

One newspaper account described the damage at The Homewood Plantation in Hale County, roughly four miles north of Faunsdale, and said 12 people were killed on the plantation along with another 18 injured.

"A dozen tenant cabins were blown completely away, the large dairy barn was flattened and the grove was left a tangle of broken trees and limbs," the Tuscaloosa News reported. "In an old tree stump, a horse collar, a dead pig and a 3 year old baby were found jammed together. Several people were found several hundred yards away after the storm. An iron pot sailed through the air nearly a half mile."

Surveys of the storm damage in Tuscaloosa County later found that the tornado — believed to be 400 yards wide — initially touched down near Fosters Ferry Road and Lewis' Tourist Camp, before traveling northeast on the ground for roughly 20 miles. While certainly noteworthy, the trail of destruction left in the wake of the 1932 tornado is dwarfed by the 2011 tornado, which reportedly had a path length of 80 miles and was 1.5 miles wide at its strongest point.

In an interesting side note, newspaper accounts of the time show how little was truly known about the power of tornadoes in the 1930s, with the Tuscaloosa News reporting that the "cyclonic winds" packed by the storm were thought to be in excess of 60 mph.

According to the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which was first introduced in 1971 as a scientific way to measure the strength of tornadoes, a "gale tornado" clocks in 3-second wind gusts between 65-85 mph, which is considered strong enough to cause slight damage to trees and roofs.

The National Weather Service eventually classified the tornado that struck west Tuscaloosa and Northport as an E4 — meaning that its wind speeds likely measured between 166 and 200 mph.

Years later, Elliott cited one eyewitness account of the tornado after it struck the western end of Tuscaloosa and crossed the river near the present site of the Oliver Lock & Dam, with witnesses saying it was "shaped like an ice cream cone and it was so filled with airborne debris that it had an eerie white glow resembling a whirling heavy snow shower moving in on the city."

The sheer strength of this particular storm was highlighted by a somewhat humorous anecdote printed in the newspaper in the days following the tornado, which reported that a signboard from a Tuscaloosa filling station was picked up by the storm and carried 110 miles to Sylacauga, where it was "abruptly dropped in the streets."

The stories from that day are numerous, with the most death and destruction wrought in Northport before the tornado continued to move northeast and cross the Black Warrior River a second time in the area of Lock 15.

Here's the approximate path taken by the March 21, 1932 tornado, according to damage surveys published in the Tuscaloosa News:

When the storm first crossed into southwest Tuscaloosa County, around the time Kinney Daniels' store was destroyed in Fosters, Tuscaloosa historian Thomas P. Clinton — referred to in his 1935 obituary as "the grand old man of Tuscaloosa" — was seriously injured when his home on Sanders Ferry Road was leveled. A century-old tree on his property was also blown down.

Living nearby, a Black woman named Bama Sellers was critically injured when her home was "blown into the road and the few remaining articles caught fire."

Even before the injured and dead were pulled from the remains of their homes and businesses, fires broke out in Northport due to ruptured gas lines and "flaming mattresses."

To make matters worse, telephone service was down and roads were impassable, which made for slow goings for emergency responders and volunteers seeking to lend a hand.

Northport resident Josh T. Bell and his family, for example, survived thanks to Bell using his body to cover several family members as their house was destroyed. Luckily, they managed to make it out with only minor injuries.

On the other side of the river, as I've previously reported, the most extensive damage could be found at the Tuscaloosa Country Club, which had first opened a decade before.

ALSO READ: Memory of the Week | Tuscaloosa Country Club Through The Years

The Country Club's clubhouse saw all but its basement leveled by the tornado, while bricks and golf clubs were scattered as far as the eye could see. Perhaps the most-remembered detail is that the Tuscaloosa Country Club's clock was blown down and stopped at exactly 4:01 p.m.

Tuscaloosa Country Club Secretary Frank Hully was injured in the storm, along with caddy master Henry Smith, greenskeeper Frank Delbridge, and his wife and two children.

The Alabama National Guard was immediately called in to assist in efforts and deter looters, while cadets from the University of Alabama's Reserve Officers' Training Corps were also summoned to augment the peacekeeping force.

The immediate aftermath then saw Druid City Hospital inundated with those injured in the storm and others hoping for news about loved ones.

As night fell on Tuscaloosa County, many were still missing and rescue efforts were slowed by the scope of destruction.

Druid City Hospital quickly reached its capacity in the hours that followed, which then resulted in the University of Alabama's gymnasium at Little Hall being used as a makeshift hospital.

An extra edition of the Tuscaloosa News was published at 7 p.m. that night and said a tent city had been constructed to provide temporary living quarters for those whose homes had been destroyed.

As the sun rose the next morning, though, the local death toll also continued to climb and area officials ended up being fairly close to their estimation that 25-30 deaths were likely.

Final reports said 38 people died in Tuscaloosa County and 250 were injured.

Among those who died from their injuries at Druid City Hospital was David Lewis — a 96-year-old former slave and "Civil War body-servant" to a wealthy planter from Greensboro.

Lewis was with a relative in Northport when the tornado leveled the house where he was visiting.

For so much death and destruction, though, there were even more stories of survival, like that of a woman referred to as "Mrs. George Morgan."

Morgan was unharmed in the storm due to being in the basement of her home when the tornado struck. The entire house was leveled and Morgan had been on an upper floor just five minutes prior. Just one of several miracles that day.

Indeed, we in Tuscaloosa are quite familiar with the destructive power of these deadly storms and our generation's own historic tornado event in 2011 is sure to be remembered a century from now in the same way we reflect on the 1932 outbreak today.

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