Omaha woman remembers 1913 Easter tornado

OMAHA, Neb. -

This week, Omaha marks 100 years since the killer Easter Sunday Tornado of 1913, the deadliest Nebraska has ever seen.

At least 150 people died in the storm on Sunday, March 23, 1913 as it tore through the heart of Omaha.

"It was on the ground for maybe 30-40 miles, and just part of a tornado came through the city," said KETV Chief Meteorologist Bill Randby.  "It started in Sarpy County, came across Douglas County and ended up in Harrison County, Iowa."

Randby said the timing of the storm, along with the power of the tornado, made for a deadly combination. 

"Nobody had an indication they had a tornado coming," said Randby.  "It was March, a time of the year when people are still thinking snow. I would say completely unpredictable."

A century later, memories of the storm live on.  An Omaha woman describes the storm as impossible to forget, and she knows firsthand; she lived through it.

"It was very scary," Maude Wangberg said in an interview with KETV NewsWatch 7's Ryan Luby.  "I remember my parents being terribly upset."

Wangberg, now 107-years-old and turning 108 next month, is one of the oldest living people in Nebraska.  She's lived through a lot, but remembers the day the tornado hit as if it were yesterday.

"It was pretty much an average day," described Wangberg.  She remembers how a trip to church, then to her grandparents' house in Benson, did not end as her family had planned.

"We got stuck out there," said Wangberg.  "We couldn't get back.  We had to stay there all night."

Around 6 p.m. that day, an F-4 tornado cut a quarter-mile path right through the middle of Omaha.  From the Ralston area, the storm moved north and east, almost following what is now Saddle Creek Road.  It then veered onto the property now occupied by the University of Nebraska Medical Center, then shifted north and east through Bemis Park.  The tornado moved to 24th and Lake and eventually to Carter Lake.

It wasn't until the next day, from a streetcar, did Wangberg see how bad the damage was.

"On the way home, we saw ravages of the tornado," Wangberg told Luby.  "Clothes were hanging in trees."

The twister caught everyone off guard and killed more than 100.

Things have certainly changed since that dark day in Omaha's history.  Wangberg's childhood home at 28th and California is now gone, as is the whole neighborhood, replaced by the North Freeway.  Technology has also changed drastically.

Randby showed Luby a 100-year-old booklet in which the writers explained to readers how powerful tornadoes can be.

"There were some scientists at the time that would have called this a tornado, but the general public just saw it as a black cloud and had very little experience with it," said Randby.

Those people also received little warning, which differs from how meteorologists would handle the same type of storm now.

"I'm sure we would have been talking about the setup days in advance," said Randby.  "Even as that tornado was on the ground, coming up through the Ralston area, certainly there would have been sirens blowing, there would have been a tornado warning out, and everybody in its path would have known.  At this time, we would have had Sky-Cams looking at it."

Wangberg and her family are among those thankful for today's advanced warning systems.  Wangberg's daughter, Lorraine Boyd, survived Omaha's second most-memorable tornado in 1975.

"I had bought my first house and the tornado ate it," said Boyd.  "I never thought tornadoes would touch me."

Even a century later, the scar from the 1913 Easter Sunday Tornado still remains. At the end of March, KETV NewsWatch 7 will look at other tornadoes that made history in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa as part of Severe Weather Awareness Week.


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