45 years later and it still hurts

In the early morning hours of October 29, 1974, the worst of several tornadoes in St. Landry and Acadia parishes touched down in Crowley.
A 10-block area of northeast Crowley, encompassing Northern Avenue and Avenue J, suffered near total devastation.
According to the Federal Disaster Agency, the report of damages in Crowley included: 111 homes totally destroyed; 108 homes with major damage; 340 homes with less than major damage; nine mobile homes destroyed; 95 outbuildings destroyed; 22 business places with major damage; one apartment complex destroyed; and two duplex apartments destroyed.
It is a miracle that only two deaths occurred as a result of the storm.
Ernest Gaspard, an automobile salesman, whose home was located near Gaspard Mobile Trailer Park in Crowley, was severely injured when his home was destroyed. Within a week, he died as a result of his injuries.
The only other fatality from the storm was Dewey Spell, a retired rice mill worker, who was killed when the tornado destroyed his home in the Maxie area.
Nearly 60 people were injured.
The monetary damages were estimated at between $7.5 million and $10 million.
Governor Edwin Edwards toured the area by helicopter. According to a newspaper report at the time, the governor, a former Crowley resident, was “visibly shaken when he descended from the Louisiana State Police aircraft.”
Crowley Post Signal Editor H.I. Mitchell noted in the article of October 30, 1974, “His first words were, ‘I am horrified. This is the worst thing that ever happened here. I had been briefed, but I can’t believe…’ and his words trailed off.”
The heavily damaged area occurred within a block of the home in which the governor had lived while he was in Crowley. This helped to bring “the enormity of damage and loss home to him more than ordinarily.”
Several steps were quickly taken to aid the city.
In the Louisiana Legislature, Crowley’s State Representative John N. John filed a bill asking for $100,000 for the Department of Public Works to aid the city in cleanup. Work crews from the city as well as the parish and the Highway Department went to work clearing the streets of trees and other debris and placing it on the side of the road for pickup.
Area farmers brought tractors and trucks to help as well.
Extra state troopers were sent to the city to assist as needed. Furthermore, mobile communications were set up to coordinate the various agencies.
President Gerald Ford declared Crowley a disaster area. Crowley’s own Congressman John Breaux toured the area and led the way for the funding of various federal programs that benefited the city’s residents.
With the help of neighbors and the community, as well as local, state, and federal government, the victims slowly began to put their lives back together.
Today, there are few physical signs; homes have been rebuilt and new trees planted. However, there is little doubt that the memories of those who lived through the experience remain vivid.
On November 3, 1974, the Crowley Post printed an article, “Women Describe What the Tornado Did To Their Lives.” Excerpted below are several of their remarks which clearly reveal the trauma that each had undergone.
• Mrs. Oscar Primeaux, 526 E. 14th St., had left her husband and daughter at the house while she was at the home of her invalid father-in-law. When she learned from her sister-in-law that a tornado had hit her home, she rushed back to her home.
Her husband and daughter were in the middle of the street and the three of them just stared at the remains of their home.
“Since then, we’ve just been in kind of a daze. I really don’t know what we’ll do. I don’t sleep or eat — all three of us just look at each other and cry. We don’t have a table, or a chair to sit down in — I don’t even have a coffee-pot to make coffee. We no longer have a bed to sleep in.”
• For Mrs. Agnes Guidry of 1434 N. Avenue J, things were better. She heard about the tornado from a taxi driver while she was working at the bus station. He told her that a funnel was coming straight at him in his cab when it suddenly went up in the air just before getting to him.
By dawn she was able to reach her home. The front porch and part of the roof were gone. Although most of her belongings were destroyed by rain water, she hoped that some items could be salvaged once they dried out.
Nonetheless, the widow said, “I’m still grateful — at least I still have my life.”
• Ed and Willie Mae Dailey were sleeping at their home on 513 E. Northern when their dog began barking.
They were “aware of the twister as the house popped and cracked about them.” Suddenly “everything got still and it was all over.”
Seeing that they were okay, they thought of their neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Waldrep and their two babies. They heard the Waldrep couple hollering for help and Ed “helped them out of the shambles of their home into the Dailey home.”
Soon after that, Ed, Joe, and another neighbor, Jerry Richard, heard their neighbor, Mrs. C.J. Stoma, calling from across the street for help. Only the middle wall was standing at the Stoma home.
The three men were able to pull half of a wall off of her. Then with the help of some policemen, they pulled her invalid husband to safety.
• The Stomas who lived at 520 E. Northern, were also asleep when the tornado struck. In telling her story, she stated that “suddenly something sucked me up off the bed and dropped me in the middle of the floor. The house was twisting and everything was cracking and popping and there was a terrible roar — a noise I can’t even describe — and a terrible orange light ... it was blinding me. In seconds it was over and everything got absolutely still.”
Her invalid husband Charlie was sleeping in a different bedroom. However, she was unable to get into his room because of the debris blocking the way.
“The roof was gone and all the outside walls were crumbled like a cracker — the only wall standing was the one in the center. I couldn’t get to my husband so I started screaming for help.”
That’s when neighbors Ed Dailey, Joe Waldrep and Jerry Richard came to the rescue. They moved Charlie to the Dailey’s where medics examined him and said he was okay. She suffered a wrenched shoulder.
In conclusion, she noted, “I am very thankful and very glad to be alive…material things can be replaced. How we came out alive, I’ll never know. It just had to be God’s will, I guess.”
• Bertha Miller and Lytra Fuentes, whose home was at 1427 N. Avenue L, were babysitting Mrs. Fuentes’s four grandchildren ranging in age from 2 to 8 years old. Each of the women were sleeping in separate rooms with two of the children.
Awakened by the lightning and downpour, one of the children cried out that she was scared. When Bertha got out of bed to go see about the child, she was thrown about the room, injuring her face and dislocating her shoulder.
“Everything was crashing and cracking and flying about, while the house twisted,” she said.
The other woman was coming into the hall carrying two of the children. “As things were sucked out of the house — including the contents of a big locked chifferobe — all of the walls were down and we couldn’t get out.”
Eventually someone came by with a flashlight. “We heard them say, ‘They are all dead in there.’ I guess they couldn’t hear us, but then a little later someone shone another flashlight at us again and Mrs. Fuentes screamed, ‘Help us, we have four little children in here!’ They heard us this time and came and lifted one wall up and got us out one at a time.”
The home had been twisted off its foundation and was totally destroyed. However, Miss Miller concluded that she had “no idea how we survived. I guess it was God’s will — He saved us.”
The following reminisces are taken from recent interviews with several people who experienced the tornado of October 29, 1974.
• Residence at 1319 N. Avenue L - home of Bill and “Dennie” Williams (also present in the house were their sons Gene and Marc):
A teenager at the time, Gene Williams recalls hearing a strong wind and things hitting the side of the house. There was a continuous lightning and then the window blew out. At that point he heard the train sound and grabbed his younger brother Marc from his bed and ran into the hallway.
He saw a tree limb fly into the bedroom window and then it flew back out the same window. Suddenly it was quiet.
His parents’ room was on the other side of the house. His father Bill Williams came down the hall, his wife behind him and said in his best ex-Marine voice, “We’ve just been hit by a tornado, but don’t panic. Let’s all hold hands.”
They headed toward the kitchen. Bill continued to calm the family by encouraging them not to panic in the midst of the chaos that was developing outside in the dark morning hours.
In Gene’s recollection, there was a bit of levity in the following scenario. Bill was determined to go to the American Legion Hospital to alert the doctors and nurses to prepare for many injuries due to the tornado.
Of course, at that point, he wouldn’t even have known if the hospital was still standing. At any rate, when his dad said he would take the car, Gene informed him, “Dad, the car is gone.” His mom’s car had been crushed by the garage falling on it. When he determined to take a bike, Marc said that he had loaned his bike to a friend. However, it was then that the family’s Pontiac Grand Safari station wagon was discovered in the side yard — still drivable.
Bill went to the hospital. Drs. C.C. Matirne and Eugene Fields at first didn’t believe him. Meanwhile back at the Williams’ house, Gene’s mother, an R.N. was treating the minor injuries of neighbors.
Miraculously, all members of the Williams household were unscratched. Although the house shifted on the slab, the roof was okay, and the family was able to stay in the house. However, 26 poplar trees in their yard were uprooted.
To this day, Gene remembers the awful smell in the street because of the broken gas lines. A couple of unimaginable images remain fresh in his memory: pine needles were driven straight into wooden walls; nail tacks were driven sideways into the wood frame of the screen door.
• Residence at 727 E. 15th St. - home of Jerry & Norma Dill (also present in the house were their daughters Donna — with her young son — Judy, Ann, Linda, and Joan and their son Jim):
A college student at the time, Judy Dill Guillot later wrote an essay as part of a class assignment. It is a vivid account of her and her family’s experiences during the tornado.
The evening began with a “particularly eerie” drive back to Crowley from Lafayette, where she was attending USL. With the end of daylight savings time, the sun had set at 5 p.m. and it was dark. All was normal that evening.
Retiring to the bedroom she shared with her sister Joan, she noticed that the severe thunder and lightning storm, predicted by earlier weather bulletins, was in full swing. Surprisingly, Judy found Joan asleep in the middle of this stormy weather.
The two sisters had opposite reactions to stormy weather. While Judy was exhilarated by such storms, Joan was always disturbed by bad weather.
At approximately 1:15 a.m., she was awakened by a loud crash, which proved to be one of the hanging lanterns on the front porch slamming against the house. Judy saw Joan run out of the room heading down the hall to wake their parents.
“There she goes again,” thought Judy.
While her sister ran down the hall to her parents’ room, Judy noticed in the midst of the continuous lightning that the pine trees were bending in half from the force of the wind.
“Instantly, I knew it was a tornado.” And then “there was a crash and explosion. I will never forget the sound of splintering wood and the deafening roar, much like the sound of a freight train traveling at high speed.”
Burying her head under the pillow, she braced herself against the headboard of her bed.
Meanwhile, Joan was with her mother in the hall. She recalled continually questioning her mother, “What is that noise? What is that noise?” It was the sound of a train, the sound that so many describe as the tornado strikes.
Joan remembered seeing the front window bowing in. Suddenly there was a loud explosion. She covered her face and screamed. She lost consciousness as she was lifted from the storm and thrown outside of the house. Her skull was separated and her whole body was bruised and sore. She floated in and out of consciousness.
Back at the house, there was sudden quietness, except for the pouring rain. Judy lifted her head. She realized that the top floor of the house was torn away, the exterior walls of the bedroom were gone. Although the interior walls appeared to be still standing, there was rubble everywhere.
Thinking that Joan might be under the debris, she began calling her name. Her mother responded that the other children in the house, Jim, Ann, and Linda were fine but her dad, Jerry and Joan were unaccounted for. Her mother feared the worst.
Since the first story of the house seemed to be intact, she was hopeful her sister Donna and her son were safe. At that time, Donna called out to see if those upstairs were okay.
Amazingly, her dad was safe in the kitchen. She later learned that he and Joan had been standing in the upstairs hallway when the tornado hit. While he was thrown down the stairwell, Joan was lifted out of the house and landed in the lot next door.
Fortunately, he was not badly hurt but Joan was still missing.
Neighbors helped get the family down from the second story.
Mrs. Dill began calling out, “Joan, Joan.” The Dill’s neighbor, Jeff Schendel, hollered, I have Joan. At first Mrs. Dill thought he meant his wife, also named Joan, so she called out, “No not your Joan, but my Joan.” Jeff assured her, “I have your Joan.”
Although both Jeff’s wife Joan and their son Jason were safe, their house had lost its roof and outside walls. After placing them safely in the car, he began walking around the neighborhood to help anyone that was in need.
He had come across Joan in the midst of the debris about 20 yards from her house. He recalled, “She was sitting up, dazed and upset. She seemed to be in shock. I asked her if she could stand up and she was able to stand.”
He then picked her up and was carrying her towards the Dill home, when Mrs. Dill began calling out.
The Dill family loaded into the station wagon of another neighbor, Robert and Kitty Valdetero. Both families headed to the American Legion Hospital, then located on North Avenue K. It was slow going with several detours taken to get through the streets filled with debris.
After treatment there, Joan was later transferred to Lafayette General Hospital. She has only brief snapshots of the couple of weeks she spent there. Her injuries resulted in stitches on her lips and head.
She remembers that, at some point, she nearly bit her tongue. There were brain scans for many months afterward. Although she made a full physical recovery, she continued to have fears of bad weather for at least 10 years.
The Dill family moved back into their home in May of 1975. A memory that continues to stand out for Judy was how helpful the community was to the family. Both friends and strangers did such things as washing their clothes or buying some new ones. Her classmates helped to reconstruct her class notes.
Because of this experience and their faith, both Judy and Joan believe that even in the most overwhelming situations, one can come through it. In any recollection of that night, the memory remains as vivid as the day it happened.
• Residence at 1403 N. Avenue L home of Jesse and Mary Young (also present in the house were their daughter Madge “Toni” and son Benson):
On the night of October 29, Toni, 21 years old, was working the late shift at the American Data Corporation when someone mentioned that the weather was getting bad. Although a tornado warning was given, Toni felt that the building she was in was secure.
As she was driving home about 12:45 a.m., the weather worsened. The rain was so hard that she was drenched just getting from her car into the house. While she was in the bathroom drying off and getting dressed for bed, the lights went out.
She recalled that she only thought the bad weather had caused the electricity to go off. Unaware of the developing dangerous situation, she went to her bedroom for a candle.
Walking back down the hall, she noticed that the attic fan was opening and closing. Suddenly there was a boom and the candle was sucked out of her hand. Her first thought was that someone was in the house.
In her panic, she ran back to her bedroom. Her dad called, “Get away from the windows.”
She hid behind the dresser, her ears popped at the exploding sound.
“I screamed, but I couldn’t hear myself scream. I saw the roof fly off,” she said.
She recalled an eerie brightness, a peachy color. It still didn’t register in her mind that it was a tornado that struck the house.
All of the family went into the bathroom; amazingly all of them were okay. Her dad sustained a few scratches. She said that his watch had been sucked off his wrist.
Then there was a “calm after the storm, my hearing returned, and my mom began praying and we all began praying.”
Forty-five years later, she remembered it as a humbling experience, saying, “In one moment you had nothing, but still had everything. We thanked God for our safety.”
Considering the violence of the wind, she noted that there was a refrigerator in the back yard. However, upon opening it, none of the dozen eggs in their carton were broken. Even within the house, the dining room table still had the tablecloth on it.
Believe it or not, her purse and keys were still there, exactly where she had laid them when she first came home a short time before the tornado hit.
• Residence at 1402 N. Avenue L - home of Harry and Judy Jukes (also present in the house were their son Jimmy, 16, and daughter Margaret, 4):
The Jukes family lived across the street from the Youngs. Although she was only 4 years old, Margaret’s memories of that night are very vivid.
Before the family went to bed for the night, her dad had been watching the World Series on the television. He had heard the warning about the tornado but assured the family, “We’ll be okay.”
Their black lab had just had puppies and they were in a “dog condo” in the backyard.
Her mom was first to hear the “train sound” and got everyone up. They sat in the hall with their pillows; all the bedroom doors were closed. Concerned about the puppies, her dad and brother headed for the back yard to get the black lab and puppies and put them in the utility room. Windows were opened to relieve pressure.
The whole street was lit up with lightning. There was a horrible noise as the attic fan opened and closed. Shingles began blowing off the roof. And then, it was done. “All was still and eerily quiet,” she said.
Her mom looked out the window to check on her grandparents’ home — Remus and Marilyn Hebert lived at 1326 N. Avenue L. The boat had been moved into the yard, but the home was still standing. Then she looked across the street to the Young’s home and screamed, “They’re dead.”
The destruction was overwhelming.
Margaret recalls her dad using a very strong flashlight to cross the street; he moved slowly and carefully realizing that there could be live electrical lines down. He carried Toni across the street to his home. Both Toni and Margaret remembered playing with the puppies in the utility room.
There were no physical injuries to members of the Jukes family. However, psychological scars were real.
Margaret was attending Joyce Mire’s preschool. She remembers that her parents were called one day because she was shaking and pacing back and forth.
The Young family returned to their rebuilt home in July of 1975.
Toni remains very vigilant when there is a report of a tornado watch. When weather looks threatening, Margaret thinks to herself. “Looks like tornado weather.”
Although it has been 45 years, for all of those that were interviewed, the memories of that night remain very vivid. When discussing that experience, their emotions are clearly visible. There is little doubt that each of them feels that God was with them that night.
It is a miracle that there was not more loss of life. Each recalled the overwhelming kindness of the community in coming to their aid.