 It can happen anywhere, and it does, usually in the same way. Moist warm air from the south overruns cold air from the north. The warm air is forced aloft, and a thunderstorm forms. Rain begins falling beneath the northeastern part of the storm, and then large hail, a tip-off of something far worse. At the southwest edge of the storm, almost always at that place, a dark, low-hanging cloud begins to churn. Out of it suddenly comes something frightening, a tornado funnel. A broccoli it touches down, spinning at more than 200 miles an hour, moving, growing, scooping up debris. Sometimes there is one funnel, sometimes several. Sometimes funnels are obscured by rain or darkness. Tornadoes may appear as transparent dust clouds, thin gray ropes, or black, wide-mouthed monsters. Whatever their shape, tornadoes grind across the nation year after year, bringing terror, death, and destruction. Since 1950, no record show tornadoes have struck every state in the Union, killing thousands, and injuring more than 100,000. But far fewer die or are injured when people are prepared. Most of them were ready when one of the biggest tornadoes ever seen struck Wichita Falls, Texas. It was an April afternoon, the one they called Terrible Tuesday. We had tornado warnings all afternoon, and we were headed to the mall, and we just did not think that a tornado was going to hit where we were. Monopartham and her husband were caught in the open by the tornado and survived, but just barely. They abandoned their car near a church and tried to cling to a tree. I remember spinning around the tree, and the next thing I know, we were sitting up on the curb. A gentleman at a pickup passed us, and I happened to raise my hand up, and he stopped, and he and another gentleman from the ravine helped us into the pickup, took us to the hospital where they amputated my right leg below the knee. A couple of weeks later, I was flown to Dallas Hospital where they amputated my left leg above the knee. James Montgomery was luckier. I got up to speeds of 70 to 75 miles an hour in my station wagon, and as I crested the hill, I realized that the tornado was still immediately behind me, and I was not gaining any distance at all. Realizing that I could not outrun it, I started looking for some type of protection, either the culvert, or about that time I thought of the wedge shape up underneath the overpass as a possible source of protection. We ran to the paved area underneath the overpass and started running up toward the wedge, and by that time the wind was so strong that I just spread eagle on the concrete to create the lowest profile. I immediately looked out from under the overpass and saw the National Guard Armory completely disintegrate, and when the winds finally subsided, all the cars that had pulled in and parked under the overpass had been blown and were stacked up on one another. Then I started looking for my automobile, and I found it a quarter of a mile down the expressway in this condition. Norma Wright walked outside her gift shop just as the tornado struck. She grabbed a construction scaffold and hung on. Suddenly the wind was not a wind anymore, it was a very solid force. I heard the sound of my voice as the air was pulled from my lungs. The sensations were of being pounded and hit and stabbed. It was violent. It was very, very violent. And my intention at that time was not so much to live as it was to be able to endure whatever I had to endure until the end, whatever that was going to be. But I guess instinctively I held on to the base of that scaffolding. Injuries were severe. All four limbs were severely injured. My left leg was off just below the knee. My right arm was torn from elbow to wrist. My left arm was broken, and my right leg was both broken in several places and lacerated to the bone from knee to ankle. Isla Benson and six other employees of her bank rode out the tornado in the bank's reinforced steel and concrete vault. This was the bank. They had sounded the tornado sirens that afternoon but we really didn't pay any attention to them until I made a call home to my son and he said, Mom, there is a bad storm coming so please take cover. So seven of us employees went into the vault and we knelt on the floor and we could hear this roaring sound. And then all of a sudden we just felt like we was going to explode and our ears needed popping. So we stayed there for a while until everything got quiet and then we got up and we looked out and we just couldn't believe what we saw because there are the cars that were in the parking lot were now in the bank's lobby and there was no bank left. 46 people died in Wichita Falls that Tuesday. It was a very small number considering the path a mile and a half wide at the tornado cut through the town. Yet many died unnecessarily. About half were killed because they tried to escape in cars and trucks. One of the very worst things they could have done to the people of Wichita Falls no better. Their city has an outstanding disaster plan. Mark Wilson is the director. The city annually conducts a disaster exercise involving all of the city departments and divisions as well as the total medical community. We have found over the years that the disaster drill has greatly enhanced our capability of dealing with a disaster. Many researchers came into our city following the disaster and without exception each one of those researchers concluded that we should have had perhaps as many as 2,000 fatalities. Mark Wilson reviews the city's plan with other members of his team. If the tornado or the disaster actually strikes us we're certainly going to be calling upon the American Red Cross, the broadcast media and the church and community groups who will be interfacing. Once we've exhausted all of those resources that are available to us locally at that time and only at that time will we then go to the state division of emergency management and call upon state for their resources. Once those resources have been exhausted then we can go to the federal emergency management agency and bring in national resources. As a center we coordinate with the Wichita Falls National Weather Service and through their sky-warned spotters they feed information into the emergency operations center of the city Wichita Falls. A tornado warning is issued by the local National Weather Service office after the spotters see it touched down. The spotters, many of them amateur radio operators, are deployed after a tornado watch has been sounded. All watches are issued from one place, the National Severe Storms Forecast Center in Kansas City, Missouri. Here, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, expert forecasters keep watch over all parts of the nation with satellites and radar. The director of the center is Fred Ostby. As part of the National Weather Service mission in saving lives and property we're here to issue tornado or severe thunderstorm watches for any area in the lower 48 states where the threat appears and we're looking at time periods two to six hours ahead of time before thunderstorms or even some of the thunderstorm clouds develop. I'm looking at the western half of the United States so we're seeing what actually is being seen from the satellite at 22,000 miles above the equator. We can also look at these satellite pictures which were looping back and forth over a period of about two hours to show the motion of the clouds so we can see the clouds as they develop and as they move. We can also look at these clouds in the infrared spectrum that is by measuring the temperature of the cloud tops we can infer how the clouds are developing and moving here and this is very important to us because obviously at nighttime we can't look at the visible clouds but by infrared we can follow cloud development 24 hours a day. Another important aspect of this kind of interactive computer system is that we can actually superimpose right on top of the satellite picture conventional weather data such as sea level pressures, barometric pressures where high and low pressure areas are superimposed right on top of the satellite picture. The Severe Storms Forecast Center uses today's technology to monitor the nation's weather. At NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma Roger Brown and other professionals are developing tomorrow's technology. The National Severe Storms Laboratory here at Norman was established in order to take advantage of the severe weather that occurs in this part of the country. One relatively new piece of information is dapler radar. Dapler radar is like a conventional radar in that it tells us where the rain is falling in storms but it also tells us how the air is moving. On this dapler display we see the conventional radar reflectivity pattern that you see on regular weather radars. The colors going from the outside of the radar echo toward the yellow and dark red in the center indicates where the heavier and heavier rainfall is occurring. However we found out from our spotters in the field that a tornado, a large tornado, was taking place at this time but there's really no indication in the radar reflectivity pattern that a tornado is occurring and even knowing that it's occurring we really can't tell where it is. Now if we look at the dapler velocity display we see a very pronounced signature bright green next to bright red. That signature is an indication of that very large tornado. Radar is a strong link in the weather safety chain. Here is another link. Al Mohler, a weather service meteorologist visits a home in Wichita Falls to advise a family on tornado safety. Normally he speaks to public groups rather than individual families. But a local TV station wants to produce a program on how to create a tornado safety plan at home. After looking at your house I really think that this interior bathroom is as you had previously noted the best shelter within the house. The rule of thumb that we use is put as many walls between you and the tornado as you can and this is an all interior room. It's very small and the smaller the room the more protection it offers. So this is excellent shelter and make sure you have something to cover your heads. And then of course we close the bathroom door. If the house had a basement Mohler would have chosen that as the shelter. How are you going to receive the warning? Say you're in bed at night and the weather service and local emergency preparedness people do strongly recommend that you have a weather radio which is tonal or equipped. Now you get weather information 24 hours a day on this especially watches and warnings which you're interested in. If you get the tonal work feature you don't have to have the radio on when we issue a watch or warning for the local area. But what happens when we put that warning statement on the air we activate a beeper on the system. As you can see it's very loud and you won't have any trouble hearing this even in the dead of sleep in the middle of the night. We strongly recommend that all families have it as well as schools, businesses industrial complexes. Classes are in session at the Ben Mylam Elementary School. The school suffered heavy damage from the giant tornado though the inside corridor remained intact. Luckily it was spring vacation and no one was there. Today NOAA Weather Radio is a vital tool in school safety. Principal Bill Parks regularly rehearses the school's disaster plan. If another tornado visits Wichita Falls a tornado warning will activate the school's disaster plan. And it will most often be based on what a spotter sees. We simply cannot do without spotters. Even in the future when we have Doppler radars all over the country we will not be able to do without spotters in that human element. So the machines help us a lot but we've got to have the man machine mix in this program to accurately get to the public what is about to happen to them. This is WB5SXX The man who first spotted the Tuesday tornado was Glenn Watley. Watley was assigned to the stadium. Other spotters were deployed around the city when the tornado watch was issued by the severe storms forecast center in early afternoon. Other spotters were stationed at the local weather office. All were linked by amateur radio. The media repeatedly warned residents in the 11-county area. The network of spotters came a few minutes later the horror begins. Wichita Falls looks as if it has been leveled by a bomb. 46 are dead. 1700 are injured. 5,000 homes have been demolished and many of the 25,000 who occupy them are homeless. The American Red Cross and other voluntary groups are on the scene with nursing care, clothing and shelter. Wichita Falls quickly exhausts its own and the state's resources and the Federal Emergency Management Agency steps in. 1400 trailers are brought in to provide temporary housing. The city has to stencil street names on curves. With familiar landmarks gone many residents can't find their neighborhoods. Rebuilding begins immediately. With it comes an awakening sense of humor. Later only a few American house slabs will bear witness to what happened here. But Wichita Falls hasn't forgotten. The disaster plan has been refined and strengthened. Once again the basic do's and don'ts are presented to the public. Do have a disaster plan for the community. For schools, factories and businesses. For the home. Listen to NOAA weather radio. You'll find it between 162.4 and 162.55 megahertz on the public service bank. Buy a battery powered weather band radio with a warning alarm. They're available at many department and electronic supply stores. Do take cover when the warning comes in a basement for lacking that in a windowless interior room. Watch for weather clues. Darkening, boiling clouds strong winds, large hail and frequent lightning. Don't ignore warnings. Don't try to escape in a car or truck. Don't open windows or doors. Don't stay in a mobile home. Nearly half of those killed by tornadoes in recent years were in mobile homes at the time. If necessary, take shelter in a ditch or ravine. Lie flat and cover your head. Don't like matches, candles or cigarettes when gas may be escaping in or near a damaged building. Don't enter disaster areas. Tornadoes have struck every state in the union and will strike many again. We can't stop tornadoes from happening, but we can defend ourselves against them. To save lives and prevent injuries all of us should learn the safety rules that saved thousands of people in Wichita Falls, Texas on an April afternoon. Today they call Terrible Tuesday.