The vortex skirted portions of Richmond Heights and Franz Park before landing in the Clayton-Tamm and Cheltenham neighborhoods south of Forest Park. At this point, the tornado intensified further, and damage became more widespread. A roof on one home was pulled away and tossed into a tree. An article in the February 10, 1959 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted that the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Alphonse Hummert, managed to escape their bedroom and head to the basement before the ceiling crumbled onto their bed. The same newspaper reported that the front section of the roof of the newly built St. James Catholic School on the corner of Wade and Tamm Avenues was wrecked. A few blocks away on Victoria Avenue, the tornado brought down the bell tower of the Memorial Congregational Church. The Reverend Paul Zieke told the St. Louis Globe-Democrat in a February 11, 1959 article that “the tower fell through the roof of the two-story brick Sunday School building.”
KTVI Channel 2, an ABC affiliate at the time, was located at the intersection of Berthold, Oakland, and Hampton Avenues. The destructive winds toppled the station’s 575-foot tower, which fell to the east and smashed through the roofs of two apartment buildings off Oakview Place. Five vehicles parked at the complexes were totaled. The top portion of the tower landed in the St. Louis Arena parking lot.
Mr. and Mrs. James Fleener were asleep in the bedroom of their third-floor apartment at 104 Oakview Place. Baby daughter, Lisa, lay in her crib across the room. Per an article in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat on February 15, 1959, Mrs. Fleemer heard a noise outside, went to the window, saw it was raining, and heard the sound of the wind amplifying. She went back to bed and told her husband she was scared. The paper described that James got up and headed to the living room to close an open window. His wife followed and stopped near the bedroom door. “He got to the middle of the room and the tower fell on him,” Mrs. Fleener told the newspaper. “Just at that moment, I looked up and debris started falling in my face.”
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat said, “Steel bars crashed between the Fleeners’ bed and the crib. Plaster, brick and mortar covered the floor. The baby was crying. Mrs. Fleener, cut on the face, arms and legs, ran to the bedroom. The crib was strewn with debris but the baby appeared safe.” From the living room came a cry for help. The devoted wife fumbled around in the dark to look for her husband. “I couldn’t see what I was doing,” she stated. “I just heard his voice. I started pulling off the debris until I had bruises on my fingers.” Mrs. Fleener was able to dig James free, and neighbors and firefighters led the family out of the apartment safely. “I was level-headed,” Mrs. Fleener said. “I had to be. But that night I broke down a little.”
The damage at St. Louis Arena was not confined to impact marks from the KTVI tower in the parking lot. The destruction was documented well in the February 10, 1959 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Arena B building, which housed the roller skating rink and bowling alleys, was hit. Per the newspaper, “The roller rink was virtually demolished, the roof collapsing into the one-story structure. Brick walls were damaged. A fire wall separated the skating rink from the 48 bowling alleys. A portion of the roof of the second section collapsed, falling on alleys 13 to 24. The bowling alleys were swept by rain, and appeared heavily damaged.” Part of the high-arched roof of the arena itself was ripped away, and windows were smashed. The south wall of The “A” building crumbled.
East of the arena, the ferris wheel at Forest Park Highlands Amusement Park was “bent double” by the tornadic winds. A wooden wall was blown down, and at least six “tall sycamore trees bordering Oakland Avenue, in front of the Highlands, were uprooted.”
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