Indianapolis, IN Area F4 Tornado – May 14, 1972

“As a survivor of this tornado I can complement your story with my personal account of the tornado as it passed through Mt. Comfort.

I was 13 and building a model rocket in the TV room of our home at 6204 W 300 N. As I looked out the window to the south west, I saw what appeared to be black paper flying high in the sky. I proceeded into the family room where my parents and younger brothers were celebrating Mother’s Day and told my dad what I had seen. He wasn’t really paying attention so I returned to my rocket.

Within a couple minutes we all heard the chugging of a train and it clicked in my dad’s head that we were about to be in the middle of a tornado and he yelled for us to get to grandma’s basement. My grandmother lived across the road (also called 38th Street) from us at 6169 W 300 N.

Unbeknownst to us grandma had gone to the local nursing home to have lunch with friends that day so her home was locked up tight. I arrived first with my brother close behind. My dad did not have his pants on at the time so was slowed down pulling his pants up as he crossed our yard. Mother was not far ahed of him. As she approached the home, two trees over 2 feet in diameter blew down on either side of her. She crawled behind a rotten beech tree until dad arrived to lead her to the back porch of the home where we all huddled in the corner between the back porch and the foundation. Dad bowed over us with his back to the tornado as it bounced over grandma’s home through the woods behind her big red barn build in the 1910s.

No pieces of the huge front doors (~10′ by ~12′) wider than a couple inches were ever found. There were dozens of trees in the woods around grandma’s house that were downed and we spent the next couple years cleaning that mess up. Our neighbor, Bob Lowder, told us he saw an ash tree in the woods that was over 5′ in diameter at its base get splintered off at its base in the tornado after it had passed behind his home and barns at 6299 W 300 N.

The tornado crossed 300 N into the yard of Mildred Fentz at 6130 W 300 N, blew a couple trees down in her yard and proceeded to Mount Comfort where two house trailers were rolled and the roof of an upholstery shop was torn off. A rail car on the tracks going through town was blown over and 6 cars with brakes partially on were blown a half mile down the track.

Later that day a parade of lookey lues drove by to assess the damage and my dad arranged about 6 of us neighbor kids next to the road to stare back at them as they passed. Our family would have been better off had we stayed at home instead of running into the path of the tornado, but thankfully we all made it.”