Mayday

It was a hot and muggy afternoon May 11, 1953 -- the skies dark and foreboding, the air ominously still. Just before 4:30 p.m., most Baylor students and faculty were finishing up their last class of the day, their minds no doubt on upcoming finals. In the next few minutes, one of Texas' deadliest tornadoes would narrowly miss the Baylor campus, dipping down a few blocks away to demolish much of Waco's central business district, claiming 114 lives. Tommy Turner years later would become an assistant to Baylor President Abner V. McCall, but in spring 1953 he was a young reporter covering Waco for the Dallas Morning News. On that day, Turner asked his wife and two children to pick him up at his downtown office a little early because it was evident a bad storm was about to break.

"The rain hit about that time and it got dark as pitch," Turner said. "Waiting for the traffic light at Fifth and Austin to change, I well remember the light was almost horizontal, the wind was blowing so hard."

Turner drove away from downtown less than two minutes before the tornado hit. When he returned shortly after the storm, he could scarcely believe the destruction. "It almost overwhelmed me," he said. "You couldn't get within about four blocks of the middle of town." The five-story R.T. Dennis Co. Building had collapsed, leaving piles of bricks up to 20 feet deep. Cars were smashed, often trapping people inside.

"Electric lines were hanging down and popping, and water on the streets was six inches deep because it had just rained. I don't know why we didn't all get electrocuted," he said.

The collapse of the Dennis building at Fifth and Austin was the single largest cause of death in the tornado. In the city block where it was located, 56 fatalities occurred; 22 of the 31 employees at the building were killed and nine others injured. Two Baylor students who worked in the building were among them -- the Rev. Cecil Parten, a ministerial student from Sweeny, Texas, and James Neal Jr., a Waco night school student. Outside the Dennis building, Keith James, a Baylor philosophy professor, and his wife, Mary, were in their car preparing to leave for church when the building fell and killed them. A handful of other Baylor faculty members and students were hospitalized with injuries, including business professor Leslie Rasner and piano professor Gladys Stinson.

Three Baylor physics professors -- Drs. Robert Packard, Herbert Schwetman and A.W. Smith -- were called into service when it was discovered that a tiny vial of radium from a downtown doctor's office had been lost in the storm. Using Geiger counters, the professors searched for two days and finally discovered the radium in the demolished Padgitt Building.

More than 500 Baylor male students helped direct traffic and dig possible survivors from the debris. Baylor ROTC cadets helped prevent looting of stores and Baylor women served sandwiches and coffee and cared for the wounded.

Downtown Waco eventually was rebuilt, but a physical reminder of the storm remained on the Baylor campus for more than 20 years. Weakened by the storm's winds, the stately spires of Old Main and Burleson Hall were removed that August and were not replaced until the buildings were renovated in April 1975.

Fiedler is a writer/editor in the Baylor Office of Public Relations.