1953 Waco Tornado Remembered

Sunday was the 55th anniversary of the worst tornado in Texas history. It struck Waco, TX on the afternoon of May 11, 1953. There is always a lot of talk of the tornado this time of year here in Waco. My uncle, Woody Barron, worked for the newspaper here in Waco at the time. I remember the story he told me once about the tornado. I was a little guy at the time he told me this but I remember it like it was yesterday. He said that after the tornado his editor told him to go out and get some human interest stories. So he walked over to Austin Avenue, about a block away, and started walking down the street and surveying the rubble. He spoke with several people about their experience during the storm. He told me that he spoke to one fellow that was driving along Austin Avenue when the tornado picked his car up and carried it for about a block and set it down. The fellow said that while in the air he saw another man that the tornado picked up while walking along the street.

Uncle Woody told me that he didn't put much stock in the story until a short time later he was talking to another man about his experience. He told Uncle Woody that he was walking along Austin Avenue when, yep! He saw a man that was driving his car in the air along Austin Avenue. Uncle Woody said that car was the first fellow he spoke with.

Now I don't know if that is true or if Uncle Woody was just making the whole thing interesting for me but I have always thought that it was a great story and I have told it many times.The local NBC affiliate, KCEN-TV Channel 6, has a video of a never released film that was taken after the tornado and shows some of the devastation. Click on the 1953 Waco Tornado Film to view it. Also The CBS affiliate, KWTX-TV Channel 10, did a story about a musician that wrote a song about the tornado. Click on the Shane Howard - Waco Tornado link to view this story. You can also go to the City of Waco web-site and watch the 1953 Waco Tornado Video Series. It is a good watch for those that are interested.

My dad was working at Central Freight Lines on Mary Street at the time. Man that place was built like a fortress. He said he can remember that it got dark and the wind and rain was really blowing. Their building had small windows that were about 15 feet off the ground so they were not in any danger of flying glass. Also, the location of their building was at the extreme western edge of the damaged area. Our house at the time was far removed from the part of town that was hit since it centered on the downtown area. I was told that the Alico Building actually swayed during the tornado but survived while the R.T. Dennis Building and Chris' Cafe across the street were totally destroyed. Tornadoes can be very fickle.

If you would like to play with a tornado try the University of Wisconsin Interactive Twister. You will need to have Java installed to view it and play with it though. © 2008 Barry T Horst


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Picture Monday, May 12, 2008

Here a a few snaps from our trip to Sea World and the Dwyer Group 2008 Annual picnic.

The above pictures show us arriving at Sea World. Jess, Julie, and Chris (In the hat) are walking from the parking lot to the main entrance. All three have "08" on their backs. Next you see the main entrance. It is their 20th anniversary. Notice that yours truly is not in the picture. I am behind the camera. The bottom picture shows Aunt Julie with Jace in the Coral Reef exhibit.AAARGH!!!!

More problems with the blamed computer! I can't get any more pictures to load. I talked to Scott about it and he is going to check the motherboard.

Here we go again, getting the blog posted on a wing and a prayer.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Sea World Update

The family went to Sea World in San Antonio yesterday. The big event was the Dwyer Group's annual picnic/outing. We had to drive about 200 miles to get there. The trip was about 3 hours and was pretty uneventful. Once in San Antonio it was fairly easy to locate the park. The biggest problem was the traffic. Boy I'm glad we don't live in the area anymore. It would get really old having to deal with the traffic. The weather was in three words, "Hot and Humid!" The perfect day for sunscreen and water.

We all had a great time and enjoyed the many activities and rides. It is hard to decide if the best part was the rides where you got drenched, got to go swimming, or the all you can eat lunch with burgers and hot dogs. Oh the memories!

That was yesterday. Today, all I remember are my feet; and the blister. Oh the memories!

I got up late today because of the trip. I then started to deal with the computer. It still is having problems with the highly mysterious "Application Hang." This has caused me to twiddle with the computer and restart and then start all over again. Time wasted. And the error logs on the computer aren't much help.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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He What?

I was looking at the online edition of the Los Angeles Times. Here is the headline I saw: Steven Spielberg: He wants to shoot 'Abraham Lincoln' in 2009
12:46 PM PT, May 10 2008

I suppose he doesn't remember that John Wilkes Boothe has already done this. © 2008 Barry T Horst


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Today Is the Day

Today has finally arrived.

Today is the day that many people have been waiting for. I know that I have been looking forward to today for some time. You see, today is a very special day. It is an event that many people have been looking forward to.

Obviously today is May 10, 2008. People have made special plans for today some time ago. Today's event has caused many people to make travel plans for this weekend. I would imagine that all the people involved have prayed for perfect weather.

What could be so special about today? There are so many things that happen today across the world. But this is Central Texas. What could be happening here you say?

The event of which I speak is not the big wedding up the road at the ranch in Crawford. Yes, I know for some that will be a big day; president's daughter and all. But apparently my wedding invitation got lost in the mail so I will not be attending the Bush's big blowout.

No the big event of which I speak is the Dwyer Group's annual company picnic. This year it is being held at Sea World-San Antonio. So the blog is short today and maybe tomorrow also. Look for pictures though. I will get a few.

Gotta go, it is time to load up and head south in IH 35.

Bye-Bye!

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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SUCCESS!!!

We had success yesterday and it was not the rice variety.

The new hard drive has been installed. It is a Western Digital Caviar drive. The new Windows XP operating system has been installed. All updates and drivers have been installed.

Most of last night was spent locating installation discs for many of the very necessary programs. I have to run 3 separate word processors due to the variety of computers I work with at work and other locations. It took a while but I finally located my Microsoft Office installation and added it to the other two programs. I also use Mailwasher Pro from Firestrust and it took some time to locate the registration key for it and a few other programs.

The next thing I need to do is to reprogram my macros into my keyboard to get all my shortcuts back. I use a Logitech G15 keyboard that allows me to program up to 54 shortcuts and macros into the keys to make work easier. And let me tell you, that does come in handy when it comes time to work on the blog.

After the keyboard I will need to work on my Favorites. Fortunately I was able to import them from del.icio.us. The only problem is they were stripped from their folders and I will have to reorganize them for ease of location. After this I will need to try to get all the e-mail addresses back into Outlook, as well as redoing the calendar and trying to recreate the schedule.

Hopefully the blog will be back to normal by Sunday. Thanks for bearing with me through this crisis.

Oh, I also installed a nifty backup program to back up data off site. Maybe that will help to alleviate problems like this in the future.© 2008 Barry T Horst


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