As the displaced residents of the Oklahoma City suburbs came to terms with the devastation around them Monday night pundits were already speculating that the tornado was one of the worst to ever hit the US, a dubious distinction for the newly homeless.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>The most At least 695 people were killed in the Tri-State tornado with \u201cThere was a great roar<\/i>,\u201d witness Judith Cox told the St. The Great Natchez Tornado ranks second on the list of the Tornado Alley is the name designated to the region of the United Decades later, seventeen tornadoes (later combined into two, the \u201cMy friends and I stopped in front of a store downtown when Again, the final death toll could not be calculated because
\ndestructive twister struck Ellington, Missouri at approximately
\n1:01 pm on March 18, 1925.The Great Tri-State Tornado traveled
\nthrough Missouri before entering Illinois and finally dissipating
\nin rural Indiana more than three hours after the vortex was first
\nspotted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nanother 2,027 injured and $16.5 million in damage (over $1.4
\nbillion in today\u2019s dollars). The tornado registered as an F5, the
\nhighest possible on the Fujita scale. Unfortunately, like Monday\u2019s
\ntragedy in Oklahoma, areas with schools were the worst hit, with
\nnine in all being demolished.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nLouis Dispatch two days after the storm hit, as quoted by Popular
\nMechanics. \u201cLike a train but many times louder. \u2018My God!\u2019 I
\ncried, \u2018It\u2019s a cyclone and it\u2019s here.\u2019 The air was full of
\neverything, boards, branches of trees, garments, pans, stoves, all
\nchurning together. I saw whole sides of houses rolling along near
\nthe ground<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\ndeadliest tornados to strike the US. Although there was no Fujita
\nscale at the time the Great Natchez Tornado is universally
\nrecognized as another F5, tossing more than 60 boats into the
\nMississippi River and drowning a total of 269 people. At least
\nanother 48 people were killed on land when the storm tore through
\nLouisiana, but slave deaths were not counted at the time so the
\ndeath toll is thought to be much higher.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nStates between the Rocky Mountains and Appalachian Mountains. The
\nthird ranking on the list, the St. Louis Tornado of 1896, landed
\ndirectly in that region.\u00a0
Nearly $4 billion (in 2013 currency) was caused when a violent F4
\ntornado swept through downtown St. Louis, killing at least 255
\npeople. Little else is known about the storm is known because few
\nof the records taken survived the century since.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nfourth and fifth deadliest ever in the US) converged on the
\nsoutheastern states, hitting Tupelo, Mississippi and Gainesville,
\nGeorgia the hardest. The storms destroyed an entire 48 city blocks,
\n200 homes and killed 216 people in Tupelo, among the victims was an
\nentire family of 13 people.<\/p>\n
\nthe owner came out and told use to take cover<\/i>,\u201d said
\nGainesville witness John Rudolph. \u201cIt was daytime but the sky
\nwas dark as night\u2026When I woke up, I couldn\u2019t move my leg. I waited
\nfor what seemed like hours for someone to come and help me. My leg
\nwas broken from fallen debris<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\nnewspapers refused to calculate the deaths of non-whites. The storm
\ntrigged flash floods and a department store fire that killed 20
\npeople seeking refuge. An infant Elvis Presley was among the
\nsurvivors.\u00a0<\/p>\n