On April 5, 1923, a violent storm tore through Silver Spring and Sligo, Maryland, leaving behind a strange and terrifying trail of destruction. Houses were flattened. Roofs vanished. Trees that had stood for a century were ripped from the ground. Wires tangled so badly that the damaged area was cut off from the outside world.
But what makes this account so gripping are the bizarre little details left in the storm’s wake.
For example, a chair was blown out from under a grandmother and baby, yet both survived. A garage disappeared without harming the fruit trees around it. Chickens vanished without so much as a feather, except for two tiny peeps found hiding inside a hollow tile.
Two teenage girls were lifted into the air, carried 200 yards, and rolled through thick mud until a fence stopped them. One man even claimed the wind blew his false teeth out.
By the next morning, residents who had lost nearly everything were already digging out, salvaging lumber, rebuilding chimneys, and trying to make sense of the impossible. Sightseers had to be kept away by militia, while families stood in the ruins of homes that only hours earlier had been ordinary places of supper, babies, porches, and sleep.
Homeless Dig Way From Ruin Left By Wind
SILVER SPRING, Maryland. — Residents of Sligo and Silver Springs, Maryland, dug their way out of the mass of ruins, left in the wake of yesterday’s tornado, and began to clear away the wreckage of their homes.
The tornado struck about 3 p.m.
Five persons were hurt, three seriously.
Eleven houses were demolished, several others damaged, 100-year-old trees uprooted and wires so jumbled the place was cut off from outside communication early today.
Damage is estimated near $100,000.
Start to Rebuild
Work of reconstructing the settlement began today.
A corps of masons, carpenters and electricians were salvaging what they could of the demolished houses and rebuilding walls and chimneys of those partly wrecked.
Militia was still on guard to keep out the army of sightseers.
Sympathy was centered about Vernon Dodge whose family was miraculously saved and whose house has been destroyed.
Dodge was asleep on the second floor.
“I suddenly felt myself lifted up and then dropped down,” he said. “I thought I was dreaming.”
Chair Blown Away
Dodge’s baby was with its grandmother in the sitting room. The chair was blown out from under them and splintered. They were unhurt.
Dodge had put all he had in the place.
“I can’t find my garage,” he said. “It stood where that clean-swept piece of concrete is. How it got away and where it went no one knows. It didn’t hurt the fruit trees about it.
“I had 20 chickens. No one has seen even a feather of them except two little peeps we found hiding in the holes of a hollow tile from somebody’s chimney.”
Hit Blair Estate
The storm first hit the Montgomery Blair estate, Silver Spring, ripping the roof from the Blair mansion and breaking down trees. It passed within a minute to the bungalow settlement on the border of Sligo and Silver Spring.
Most of the residents of the section were away at the time and when they returned the sobs of the women and mute consternation of the men bore witness to how hard they were hit.
Over the entire stricken area lay bits of wood from fences, roofs, porches, steps, walls, and trees. Trees were barren of branches.
Starting on the Montgomery Blair estate from a southwesterly direction the “freak” cut a swath between 200 and 300 feet wide toward the northeast for half a mile. Sheathing from roofs near the start of the tornado were carried half a mile distant.
Was Nursing Baby
Mrs. Joseph Steckline was nursing her baby when the wind tore into her home. Walls flew off as if they had been rotten fence rails. Mrs. Steckline and the child suffered only scratches from flying material.
After the wrecker had passed and crowds surrounded the vicinity, the mother and child still remained in what was the parlor, but now is just a floor and one side wall.
A board measuring about 3 feet long, 3 inches wide and an inch and a half thick, was found driven 7 inches into the brick chimney of the Steckline home.
Animals Unhurt
Across the street, William M. Cowell’s home and barn collapsed. Two horses, a cow and a calf were in the barn, made of tile, when the wind lifted the whole thing into the air and carried it 50 yards before dropping it to crash into thousands of fragments. The animals remained uninjured, except for a slight cut on one of the horses.
Another freak of the storm was the blowing out of the cellar walls of John von Herbull’s house, with the upper part of the building left comparatively whole. It stands now on frail back and front supports.
Picks Off Roof
Mrs. Walter Harden’s roof was picked up and deposited in her front yard.
Tenth precinct police helped the national guard protect the property.
A newspaper photographer found William Cowell’s strong box containing Liberty Bonds and other valuables about 60 yards from the house.
Florence M. Davis, 15, and Thelma Stanley, 16, were walking down the road to the back part of the Sligo settlement when they suddenly were lifted and carried through the air at terrific speed, deposited in a sloughed field 200 yards away and rolled over and over until stopped by a fence post.
How It Felt
“It certainly was a terrible feeling,” Miss Davis said. “We didn’t know what to think! It reminded me of when I was a little child and a man would suddenly lift me up high and let me drop back into his arms.”
“My heart was in my mouth,” Miss Stanley said. “I don’t want to ever go up in an airplane if that’s what it’s like.”
“And the mud! Uh! I can taste it yet. We felt so silly being rolled over and over in thick oozy mud. I tried to stop rolling, but couldn’t. I put my hands out, but got all doubled up like a ball again until the fence stopped me. It took my breath away. It was all over in a few seconds, but I’ll never forget it.”
Hair Full of Mud
“The worst thing about it is our hair was full of mud. I’ll never get it out. I broke my new hair net, too, trying to pull it off,” Miss Davis said.
C. Kronenbitter lives next door to the Davises. His father was sitting on the porch and the first he knew the storm had struck was when he saw the girls whisked into the field. He went out into the road when roofs began to fly off garages at the rear, but he escaped the wind, which seemed to whirl all about him.
Was Dressing a Baby
A nurse was dressing the baby on a second-floor room of Dr. Dudley’s home. She was thrown to the floor as the roof caved in. The room escaped damage. She climbed out the window with the baby.
Mrs. Hewitt had three little children in the house, one 18 months old. She and the nurse covered them with their own bodies while glass flew about them from the broken windows.
Several autos on the 7th Street Pike were rolled over.
The Lee real estate office and workmen’s headquarters was picked up and whirled a quarter of a mile against a group of trees.
Cowell was in an upper room of his house when it caved in. He said his false teeth were blown out.
Shortly after the storm the local militia took charge and were later relieved by state troops. The place is still under martial law.
Source: The Washington Daily News. Washington, D.C. April 6, 1923.
