“Peeled and Desolate”: The Long History of Tornadoes in the American South

• In Event: Staying with the Changes: Displacement, Disaster, and Transformed Landscapes in the United States

Abstract

One of the deadliest tornadoes on record ripped through Natchez, Mississippi in 1840. Observers noticed the “masses of black clouds,” and then the “air was black with whirling eddies of house walls.” Death and destruction were widespread with hundreds of area residents killed, and in a matter of minutes, “huge timbers” were “torn from distant ruins.” Newspaper reports compared the storm to “the explosive force of gunpowder.” The immense wreckage left survivors houseless, wounded, and grappling with the tornado’s ferocity. In the immediate aftermath, planters volunteered “large gangs of slaves to assist in clearing the streets and digging the dead from the ruins.” A reflection of the antebellum South, the enslaved became de facto disaster crews—on the front line of Natchez’s ruins. Snaking across the bluffs of the Mississippi River, and eventually wreaking havoc upon Natchez, the tornado of May 1840, appears more like a strange, tragic incident than a storm with lineage. These events, at first glance, lack the historical dimensions that have made studying hurricanes and earthquakes attractive to scholars. And yet, there’s a history of tornadic activity in the southeastern US worthy of reconstruction. Recent studies have pinpointed climate shifts as one source for the increasing frequency of tornadic activity in “Dixie Alley.” My presentation will examine the history of tornadoes in the region, the narratives of displacement that have dominated our understanding of these events, and what historical analysis can offer to contemporary discussions about the relationship between tornadoes and climate change.

Author

• Caroline R. Peyton, University of Memphis, Department of History