The Barton Family - 50 Year Anniversary of the Ruskin Heights Tornado

There's been talk for the past several weeks about how this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Ruskin Heights tornado. When we first moved into our house, our neighbors across the street, the Millers, were sure to ask if we had a basement because that tornado had come right up the other side of the street. I'd always been curious just how close it came.

Last Sunday, just as I'd finished mowing the north yard, Mike & Kate came outside and we were playing catch with Bingo. A truck seemed to be looking for something, then parked right outside our house. The driver got out and asked if he could park there for a few minutes. As it turned out, he had grown up in the house behind ours and had witnessed the tornado's passage from his garage and he wanted to take a picture from the same site on the exact 50th anniversary - about 15 minutes from when he got there. He handed us a copy of a web page print out with this photo on it...

You can see the destruction in this aerial photo. Our house is circled in yellow. If this picture were taken today, there would be a line of evergreens in front of the house along Longview Rd.

The house behind ours along Longview was his. He told us stories about playing football in our north side yard and that our house was the first one built around here. He also told us that he'd married a girl who lived in the house on our other side and they've been married 39 years. After talking just a couple of minutes, he left to go to introduce himself to Janie & Josh, who now live in his old house. Josh told me that they talked for quite a while that night, filling them in on all sorts of stories about their house.