 Unnamed Newspaper
Wednesday afternoon, May 15, 1974 WHITE TORNADO HITS ETHEL No Injuries as Storm Levels Gin by Keith Worsham Ethel - A "white tornado," dipping out of a black thunderhead, ripped through this small Grayson County community about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and leveled the cotton gin, an office building, a trailer house and caused an estimated $125,000 in damages. The gin was a pile of debris and an office safe was found sitting a few feet away. Filing cabinets from the office which contained the invoices of the business had not be found early Wednesday. Owners of the gin are Foy Wallace of Gunter and Bob Light and George Light, both of Collinsville. F.D. Recknor, bookkeeper of the gin, said he estimated damage of at least $125,000 and possibly more. Owners of the gin could not be reached by phone for comment. Mrs. George Light, contacted at her home, said the gin was insured. Gregory Ortega, a ginner who lives just south of the gin, said he was home about an hour before the tornado hit. "I'd been working at the gin getting it ready for this year's crop and had been at the gin just an hour before it was . . ." "I had in my mind that I would go get in a ditch if the cloud came our way. I told the other men to pick out a place they wanted in the ditch," Thompson said. In addition, Thompson said a refrigerator sitting on a front porch of a house in Ethel was picked up and thrown into the front yard. The house wasn't damaged. Back at the gin Wednesday morning, F.D. Recknor of Gunter, bookkeeper of the gin, said he was still looking for his filing cabinet which contained the invoices of the company. Recknor just shook his head when he saw the office of the gin gone and all that remained was a concrete foundation. A few feet away, the company's safe weighing several hundred pounds was sitting. It appeared sound considering what it had been through. Machinery left at the gin was destroyed. A trailer house on the gin property was destroyed. All that remained of it was the wheel base which was left upside down. No one lived in it. Ethel History Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson CountyTXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |