photo courtesy of KSDK on Instagram
Thanks to Joe Schlafly for sharing his childhood memories of the 1959 tornado, and his more recent experience as the Friday, May 16 tornado followed a similar path through the Central West End.
THE TORNADO by Joe Schlafly
In 1959, from my second floor window, I watched a huge tree in front of my house on Pershing Place crush my father’s car. The massive tree split the car in two and thus began a week of furious playtime among its branches involving all the kids in the neighborhood.
My father was not amused, nor were the other residents of the Central West End who watched the roof of the old Arena on Oakland Avenue soar overhead towards a landing in Gaslight Square. City and State emergency help appeared, I am certain.
In addition, I do know that President Eisenhower, despite his shellacking by City voters in the ’56 Presidential election, leading to his loss of the State of Missouri, summoned his higher Presidential leadership ethic and held a press conference to declare federal support for St. Louis in the aftermath of the tragedy.
None of this was in my mind as I sat in my 7th floor co-op overlooking Forest Park on Friday, May 16th, 2025. I remember seeing some dark, angry clouds gathering in the west towards Clayton, but I was focused on the imminent arrival of an HVAC repairman.
In an instant, I both heard and felt a huge shaking noise as uber powerful wind gusts burst through the windows. I streaked to batten down the hatches, albeit too late, while trying to salvage the contents of the co-op. The wind grew even stronger and all I could see was torrential rain descending on a landscape of trees bending unnaturally, well beyond the powers of even a Degas ballet dancer.
I heard a crash in another room and discovered that a window had blown out as fierce water shards filled the room. I tried to wedge the window back into place before quickly grasping the futility of that endeavor.
The onslaught only lasted for 3 or 4 minutes. While the rain continued, the wind began to subside. I spied nothing but chaos within my home.
I then heard a voice calling out for help from my front door. I greeted my neighbor and we spent some time trying to comprehend what we had just experienced. We helped each other move from shock to composure and started to say things like “it could have been worse” which is a sure sign of the recovery process.
So called experts assert that the 1959 tornado was stronger than the 2025 edition. I don’t believe it. F3 vs. F4, blah..blah.. What I saw overlooking the Park last Friday was terrifying.
It is one thing to smile invincibly from the second floor when your father’s car is cleaved by an uprooted oak; it is totally another when you are the 7th floor target of an other worldly tornadic assault.