Tonight at 12:15 a.m. marks the 91st anniversary of the deadliest tornado to ever strike Middle Tennessee….and it occurred right here in the Upper Cumberlands. I pulled the following from various storm reports.
According to the official storm reports, “The tornado moved northeast from near Livingston to near Byrdstown. Thirty-three of the 35 deaths were in the community of “Beatty Swamps,” six miles north of Livingston. The half-mile wide funnel destroyed every home in that community, and killed or injured virtually every resident. Much of the area was swept clean of debris.”
“Throughout Tuesday (May 9) the hills and valleys of Middle Tennessee were clothed in a thick haze, and during the early part of the evening and until late Tuesday night the air was stuffy, with a flashing electrical storm and a high wind predicting heavy rain. The rain in the tornado area was of flood proportions.”
“The tornado struck with terrible suddenness. Beginning at Eagle Creek, northwest of Bethsaida, the twister moved in a zig-zag line three-quarters of a mile wide, spent its fury here, and ended near West Fork, a distance of about eleven miles from its beginning. In its wake it left the worst destruction this section of Tennessee has ever seen.
“Houses were torn down wholesale. Barns with their contents, including farm machinery, were swept away as if they had been match boxes. A farmer’s binder was blown from his barn to a field 500 yards distant, and was left a worthless scrap of twisted iron. A new automobile was swept along for hundreds of feet and left a wrecked mass.”
“The tornado brought its share of freaks, if one is a goodly share with dozens of others yet unknown. A square of floor linoleum was found driven into a tree; a two-by-four plank was driven completely through an automobile tire; a millet straw was found driven into a fruit tree.
But most peculiar of all was at the home of Will Crawford, whose house was blown away, as were all his outhouses and his barn. In his chicken house two hens were setting, and they were found this morning complacently perched in their nests under a pile of debris, busily hatching their eggs, oblivious to the destruction around them.”
“While searching parties scoured the vicinity for more dead, troops from Troop A, 109th Cavalry, of Cookeville, guarded the area to prevent pilferage, which had begun soon after the bodies had been removed.” (Even back in those days!)
“The community here turned itself into a corps of searchers, nurses, and builders after the ravages of the tornado had made them all brothers. A nurse from Livingston, employed by the county, came to Bethsaida this morning seeking some of the injured. She was told where they were, but that the road was impassable. She got a mule, and with a quantity of cotton, bandages, antiseptics and healants boarded the mule and went to the suffering.”
After the tornado, Beaty Swamps ceased to exist. The only landmark that alludes to the former community is Beaty Swamp Road, which intersects Highway 111 about nine miles north of Livingston.
The day before the Beaty Swamps tornado, an F-4 tornado swept through southern Kentucky, from southwest of Tompkinsville to northeast of Russell Springs. Thirty-six people were killed in that storm.
After May 10th, the next deadly tornado in the region wouldn’t occur again until the super outbreak on April 3, 1974.
The Cole family coffins lined up for burial in a neighbor’s yard near the cemetery. The entire family was buried in a mass grave under one tombstone. The parents and their seven children perished in the storm.
