Tornado Ghost Towns p3 (Fan Edition!) And why some towns survive devastation

Here I am back in Glazier, Texas, a tornado ghost town, or well at least a tornado ghost jail. I asked my audience after the second video in my tornado ghost town series if they knew of any other tornado ghost towns that I should follow up on, and so here are five more tornado ghost towns discovered by my audience. While the stories of all tornado ghost towns are pretty tragic, this one just seemed a lot more. It's a Sunday, August 10th, 1924. Three Mennonite families and their pastor gather after church services at Henry Coons Ranch near the very small town of Thurman, Colorado. It's their annual harvest celebration. The harvest celebration is a lot like Thanksgiving. It's a holdover from various festivals. Protestant churches held before Thanksgiving became a modern North American tradition. Families might have brought food to church to put on display. After church services, the families gathered for a large meal and gave thanks for the year's bounty. In all, 27 men, women, and children from the Thurman area were in attendance at the Coons Ranch. Northeastern Colorado has a bit of a reputation when it comes to tornadoes, but not typically of the large and violent variety, though that has happened on a few rare occasions. Rather, Colorado makes up for this with reliably high numbers of typically weaker tornadoes and brief land spouts throughout the summer. Often these storms and their tornadoes are very slow moving, stationary, or sometimes even move east to west. Weld County, for example, has more tornado reports in its history than any other county in the country, with more than 270 tornado reports since 1950. Northeastern Colorado gets so many tornadoes due to unique geography, straddling both Tornado Alley and a special terrain feature called the Palmer Divide, creating a region known as the Denver Cyclone, which in short helps spin thunderstorms that form here. But the big numbers aren't the reason why there's such a reputation here. Tornadoes in Northeastern Colorado are beautiful. High base storms with the right surface environment can create very tall, aesthetically pleasing tornadoes and land spouts. And because much of this region is at 4,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level, the thinner air means visibility is fantastic. It's not unheard of for spotters and chasers in Colorado to see tornadoes from up to 40 miles away. Another aspect of Northeastern Colorado is that these photogenic tornadoes rarely encounter structures. Much of the area is farm and ranch land, speckled with a few homesteads and sparse towns. Shortly after the meal was over, Henry Coons looked out of the window of his farmhouse on the afternoon of August 10, 1924, and witnessed multiple funnel clouds and at least one tornado touching down to their north, many miles away. It was in the direction of a neighboring ranch. Mennonites have an almost impulsive reaction to aid people in natural disasters, and that mission continues to this day. After the tornado lifted, Henry and eight other men from the Garrett, Yoder, and Coons families drove to where they believed the tornado had touched down. None of the buildings in that area appeared to have been damaged. The nine men turned around and started driving back home. It isn't quite clear if a new storm had formed or if the storm had just recycled again further south. But what happened next is one of the most tragic stories in the history of violent tornadoes. At 1.45 pm, a new, much larger, and much more destructive tornado had touched down just to the west of Thurman and the Coons ranch. The nine men raced back home. They would arrive just as the farmhouse was being destroyed by an F4 tornado, with 18 people still inside, possibly unaware of what was coming for them. The men were just 200 yards from the home as it trembled as if a giant unseen fist was shaking it. Seconds later, the structure was ripped apart and its occupants hurled into the air. In all, nine children and one woman, 10 people in total, lost their lives in just one building. The other eight were left seriously injured. The tornado did not strike any other buildings that day, yet this single data point makes this tornado the strongest in Colorado history and also the deadliest. Neighbors became first responders, moving and treating the wounded in their own homes. Because of the combined attention of the disaster and the sheer number of lives impacted by the event in the immediate area, over 1,000 people were in attendance for the funeral for the 10 lives tragically lost in this fluke of Colorado tornado history. The nearby town of Thurman never fully recovered from this disaster, but the tornado only took one farmstead, yet sheltering many of the town's residents. Ultimately, the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl would lead to the final demise of Thurman a few years later. Today, a handful of farms occupy the area and the Thurman Cemetery remains an echo of a town with a tragic end. For our next stop, we aren't even leaving Washington County, Colorado. In fact, just a few miles up the road to the aptly named Last Chance. Last Chance is so named as it was at one point a lonely but busy fuel stop along US Highway 36 and State Highway 71. That changed once the interstate highway system was built, effectively cutting off the town from travelers. The population quickly declined and by the 1970s through 2000 was just 25. But rather than a tornado ghost town, Last Chance is instead today a ghost town famously hit by tornadoes, both in 1993 and 2010. The Last Chance Linden Tornado series of 1993 did not directly impact the town proper, but did damage a few homesteads nearby, and in 2010, a photogenic tornado touched down just on the edge of town. In this case, a town named synonymous with two rather popular photogenic tornadoes in the storm chasing community just happens to be uninhabited today, but not because of either tornado event. Instead, it was a different natural disaster that imperiled Last Chance. A very large grass fire in 2012 was what sealed its fate. Residents evacuated ahead of the fire, but later returned to find 11 structures, including four homes destroyed. Not much is left of Last Chance, except a few gutted homes and businesses. The presence of gnarled trees and dilapidated buildings gives a bit of a sense that a tornado could have impacted parts of town in the past. I think the proximity and time between the 2010 tornado and the 2012 fire might have led some to think, including myself, that the tornado was the cause of Last Chance's abandonment. Unfortunately, my next three visits will have to be entirely virtual. It is 2020 after all while I'm making this third installment, the year nothing went to plan. Off to another town suggested by my audience, Moes, North Dakota. And with a sign near the former site of Moes with the tagline, The Town That Blew Away, you'd think this would be a There's only conflicting secondary source information about Moes, North Dakota. It seems what really happened to Moes, North Dakota is nearly lost to time. In fact, it even took some digging to find an exact date for the tornado. And in all places, I found that date on a North Dakota geology website. July 12, 1943. Not even friends of mine with incredible tornado history knowledge right in their back pocket had even heard of this place. There's mention that Moes' grain elevator was destroyed and the town store had to be moved to a temporary home. Some mentioned that homes and barns were destroyed, but little other detail. Even the National Weather Service Forecasting Office websites in North Dakota make no mention of Moes. That said, those in government had far more pressing matters going on in 1943. So I wouldn't be entirely surprised some significant weather event didn't get its due attention. But even with having the nickname, The Town That Blew Away, it's not entirely convincing to me that this was a tornado at all. So my next stop is Thomas Grazulis' Significant Tornadoes, 1880-1989. This is a gigantic book of all the tornadoes of F2 strength or greater during that 110-year period. And really great news, it's getting an update soon. Grazulis meticulously researched, cataloged, and retroactively rated an entire century's worth of tornadoes. And yet, there's no mention of Moes, North Dakota. I'm left with a dilemma. If a tornado event destroyed a town, surely it would have gotten at least an F2 rating. And if this was a major thunderstorm wind event, surely towns nearby would have also reported significant damage. And even if these were just thunderstorm winds, then this theoretically should be a very noteworthy setup and surely documented somewhere. So first I salvaged what I could online. Named after one of its residents, Morris Moes Greenland, the town's first shop owner, and a stop along the Pacific Railway, Moes was founded in 1899. After that, I couldn't find a whole lot. There was a church in the area that seems to be fondly remembered by former residents. But after that, nothing but dead ends and anecdotes about damage to the town of Moes. So I made a phone call to the local museum and asked for information on how Moes, the town that blew away, got its name. Was it a tornado or a windstorm? To my surprise, they weren't sure either. Suddenly, I turned weather detective. While waiting for more information, I found this. Hand-drawn surface weather maps of July 12 and 13, 1943 from the Weather Bureau. This was the predecessor to the modern day NOAA and National Weather Service we are familiar with today. Long before tornado watches and warnings, fancy graphics, computer modeling. Instead, we have to decode some symbols here. Moes, North Dakota is located here, near the intersection of the cold front and the warm front that day. Possibly with a low pressure system sitting right over Bismarck, which I'll draw in. We call this place a triple point, where a dry line cold front and warm front meet. Dry lines aren't typically notated on old maps, so you have to locate it yourself. It's where there is a contrast in wind direction and surface dew points, rather than temperature, on either side of a boundary. And nearby, we can see high temperatures in the mid-70s with dew points in the mid-60s. Also of note are backing surface winds to the south and east of the triple point, which is typical during most plain style tornado and major severe weather events. Another important symbol is the thunderstorm observed notation just to the east of the dry line. Another clue. What we are looking at here is a nearly textbook surface map of a probable tornado event for North Dakota. And more importantly, surface environment winds of just 15 to 30 miles per hour. Not at all the kind of thing we'd call a simple wind storm. And if you know what it's like to live in the Dakotas, surface winds like this are just any day of the year. So the evidence for now goes back to tornado. But remember I said this was nearly textbook. It's July after all, and a great time of year for another kind of significant weather event produced by very similar conditions. Then I got an email. It's a news article from the Griggs County Sentinel Courier from just days later, July 15, 1943. Let me paraphrase some highlights. Griggs County felt the full force of probably the worst storm in North Dakota's history, both in damage caused and in the territory covered. Griggs County, where Moes, North Dakota is located, wasn't even the worst hit. The storm covered a wide area, crops being affected all over. There is no record of a storm like this in the state. 90 mile power winds upstream at the Grand Forks Airport. Wide wake of destruction, flattened grain fields, toppled houses and barns, and farm buildings. Driving force of the rain made it difficult to measure. Bismarck, Bandon, Cooperstown, Hannaford, Sharon, Finley, Annetta, Grand Forks, Binford, McHenry, and finally Moes. Everyone, I'm now almost certain what happened to Moes, North Dakota. A powerful derecho, an extreme straight line wind event that often covers many miles in sometimes several U.S. states. Derecho is a Spanish word meaning straight. Derecho and direct have the same root Latin word, directus, which means straight or direct. And that's what this kind of storm really does. Once formed, they move with a purpose and generally from west to east. It's not unheard of for a derecho to produce winds in excess of 130 miles per hour for minutes at a time in many counties wide. This is the same strength as a high-end EF2 tornado or a category 4 hurricane. In fact, a very similar event just happened this summer in Iowa. Widespread damage to buildings and farms, grain fields leveled, a wide geographic area, and winds in excess of 130 miles per hour. Thankfully today, homes and buildings are constructed much differently than in the years leading up to the mid-century. Moes, North Dakota blew away, maybe not in a tornado, but a derecho. But here's the thing. Derechos are sometimes capable of producing tornadoes. Often these are brief and embedded in rain. And what someone in 1943 would have called a cyclone looks nothing like these embedded tornadoes, unless you were somebody right in it. While I'm certain that the overall event was a derecho, Moes, North Dakota residents might have witnessed something else, telling a very different firsthand account of the events of July 12, 1943. If you have any additional information, please feel free to reach out to me. The story ends with the two main economic drivers of the town, the grain elevator and the town store, shutting down. And then finally the post office and the rail line. A series of events kicked off by major severe weather, burning Moes, North Dakota, the nickname, the town that blew away. Two more towns suggested by my audience were Udall, Kansas and Hallam, Nebraska. I'll run these two in parallel because there are many similarities. How much of them were destroyed by tornadoes and why they survived. Neither of these two are ghost towns today, but under just slightly different circumstances, both probably should have been. Both Hallam and Udall are in the heart of the plains and the traditional tornado alley. Both are just outside of major metro areas. In previous installments of this series, I mentioned the reasons why some plains towns never bounced back from major natural disasters. One reason is likely distance from a major metro area. Udall and Hallam, however, are bedroom communities. Hallam lies just 25 miles from downtown Lincoln, Nebraska and Udall lies just 25 miles from Wichita, Kansas. Both Lincoln and Wichita are college towns with significant, even growing economies. Both towns have a commute time of just 30 minutes along major highways, which is very reasonable. The point here is that neither Udall nor Hallam require self-sustaining economies to thrive. On May 25, 1955, Udall received nearly total devastation. Only the post office, bank and one business avoided major damage. The rest of Udall was either leveled or heavily damaged. The tornado received an F5 rating, the maximum, and 80 people lost their lives that day. This is an incredible death toll for a town of just 600 at the time. Additionally, 273 people were injured. Some eerie parallels emerge when looking at the radar presentation of the Udall storm to Greensburg. Northward motion and an occlusion phase just before reaching town. The time of night was also similar to Greensburg. Udall, Kansas has an interesting and indirect connection for me. Someone I've worked with for a very long time lost family members in the Udall tornado. You can watch an uncle of hers describe his experience in the Udall tornado in the link above, or in the extended Tornado Ghost Towns playlist that I've placed at the end of this video. And this is where the contrasts emerge from Udall and Hallam. On May 22, 2004, just three days short of 49 years later, a high-end F4 tornado just shy of F5 strength. Astonishingly, the Hallam tornado was two and a half miles wide when it struck the town. At the time, this was the record, only to be exceeded nine years later, the day the El Reno, Oklahoma area infamously would be struck by a slightly larger tornado 2.6 miles wide. Unlike Udall, Hallam received somewhat more spotty damage. While some structures were completely destroyed to the foundation, others were left relatively untouched. This is in spite of the tornado completely engulfing all of Hallam. But this seems to be a common theme in absurdly large tornadoes. Sub-vortices within the parent tornado created the most damage, while the parent tornado itself is relatively weak. Because of the 50 years of improvements to the National Weather Service, improved tornado warnings, public awareness, access to shelters, and 50 years of construction improvements, all likely contributed to limiting the death toll to just one, and with only 38 injuries, in a town of just over 300 people. The Hallam tornado was weaker than Udall, but made up for this in sheer size. Hallam in many ways owes its low death toll to the legacy left by Udall. In the wake of the Udall tornado of May 25, 1955, the way the Weather Bureau communicated severe weather warnings, still in their infancy at the time, was fundamentally changed and began to evolve into the much more effective system we know today. While Udall has completely recovered to a population similar to before 1955, Hallam hasn't nearly had as much time to recover, but it's well on its way. Economics, specifically the proximity to important metro areas nearby, have contributed to the speedy recoveries of both Udall and Hallam. Thanks for watching this fan contribution installment of my Tornado Ghost Town series. While this might be the last one that I make in the series, do your best to convince me otherwise in the comments. If this is your first time watching this channel, I cover various astronomy, weather, and outdoor adventure topics. I'm a storm chaser, astrophotographer, aurora chasing, kayak camping, backpacking, wildlife watching, road tripper, and if any of that sounds fun, come join me. Immersive outdoor science is the theme here, and if you need even more, follow my social media links or join my discord server. The links are in the description. Thanks for watching, and until the next one, I'll see you out there.