 
Mikeg
Member
Username: Mikeg
Post Number: 1608
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 8:39 pm: |    |
We were eating supper between 5 and 6 p.m. on Friday, May 8, 1964, when my dad's volunteer fire dept. radio suddenly started squawking with alerts and cross-talk from distant stations. Within a minute came the call for his volunteer fire dept. to turn out for a mutual aid call. Nearly all of the fire depts. in Macomb County would end up responding to help in, or provide back-up for, the search and rescue efforts following the tornado that had just plowed through the vicinity of Sugarbush and Cotton Roads in Chesterfield Township.
12 people were killed and many more were injured by the storm. 200 homes were demolished and another 300 were damaged along the two mile long path of the tornado, which also damaged boats out in Lake St. Clair. |
Bvos
Member
Username: Bvos
Post Number: 2273
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 9:41 pm: | |
And the old township hall leaked during every rain storm since... that is until they tore it down for some sort of strip-mally thing.
That's part of Chesterfield Twp. lore for those that grew up there (like me). |
Mauser765
Member
Username: Mauser765
Post Number: 2693
Registered: 01-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 9:44 pm: | |
Theres a large monument near city hall with all the names of those who perished - along with the original area school house and a log cabin. |
Mikeg
Member
Username: Mikeg
Post Number: 1610
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 10:51 pm: | |
I can't find much on the Internet about the 1964 Chesterfield tornado. However, a series of severe storms and tornadoes raked SE Michigan on the evening of April 12, 1893 and a story about them in the April 14th edition of the NY Times includes this account about a tornado that hit nearby:
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Jcole
Member
Username: Jcole
Post Number: 536
Registered: 04-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 11:00 pm: | |
Here's a little bit about it off of the National Weather Service site.
"The second F4 tornado to hit St. Clair county also occurred in May...May 8th,
1964 The tornado actually developed over Macomb County, 3 miles north of
Mt. Clemens, then plowed east northeast across New Baltimore to just north of
Algonac, in extreme southern St. Clair County, before crossing the St. Clair
River into Canada. This tornado killed 11 people and injured more than 200 as
it destroyed 132 homes and damaged another 240 homes and farms. "
My family had friends right in the middle of it. The entire side of their house was peeled off, and you could look in as if it were some sort of doll house, with the furniture still in place on each floor.
Very weird |
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 882
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 11:24 pm: | |
GREAT FIND MIKEG! I lived most of my life in Chesterfield and have heard a lot of this tornado. It really left its mark on the community. As a kid there were foundations of houses that were blown down during the tornado. There was also the foundation of an old centennial farm in a set of woods. Funny the farm was gone by the mid seventies and by the mid nineties it was a small thicket of trees. |
Blueidone
Member
Username: Blueidone
Post Number: 223
Registered: 03-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 11:34 pm: | |
I lived in Berkley during that time, and clearly remember being able to leave school because of the tornado watch...and walking home looking at the blue sky above and thinking how lucky we were to get the day off with such great weather!
Then a few hours later...came the wind and clouds...and I looked out the window and saw the funnel cloud building overhead. Very scary!! |
Kville
Member
Username: Kville
Post Number: 108
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Friday, May 09, 2008 - 5:16 am: | |
My grandparents went through that tornado in their car in their driveway - they were in their 80's at the time. They were driving to their house on Anchor Bay and they could see that a storm was coming up very quickly. My grandmother was driving and my grandfather had his key ready so that they could dash into the house before the storm. When they tried to open the car door, they couldn't - because of the wind. My grandfather then knew what was happening and pushed my grandmother down on the seat and laid on top of her. In two minutes it was over. The car was intact, covered with debris, but their house was completely flattened. If they had made it to the house, they would have been killed.
Theirs and their next door neighbor's house was flattened. Their other neighbor's house was picked up and moved intact toward the lake. The neighbor's house didn't go into the lake only because of a large tree at the breakwall that stopped it. (Later they were actually able to move the house back to the foundation).
I had never witnessed such devastation, but we were all so thankful that my grandparents were safe. They used the house as a summer home back then and it being Mothers' Day weekend, it was our normal first summer holiday at the lake. After rebuilding, they never went out to the lake until the weekend AFTER Mothers' Day.
They said as soon as they managed to get out of the car, all they could hear were sirens. Fire trucks & ambulances were coming down their road with completely flattened tires, driving on their rims. All the weird things that they found afterwards were almost amusing. They had a TV in a big console with doors covering the screen. It was still intact, they thought, until they opened the doors. The wind had opened the doors on the TV, a brick went through the picture tube, and the doors closed in front of it again.
Another neighbor tried to get into the storm cellar under their house (no basements there - just a crawl space). She had gotten almost down there when the tornado struck. It sheared the hair off the top of her head - like a bad haircut.
It's a weekend I'll never forget. My grandparents' picture and a write up appeared in the Macomb Daily. |