The Power of Nature: 40 Year Anniversary of Albion Storms

ETN archives

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the night a series of deadly tornados touched down in Pennsylvania. Jonathan Burdick looks back on that day and pieces together the timeline of events through public records and personal accounts.

As a kid growing up in rural Crawford County during the 1980s and '90s, I thought about tornadoes a lot. If there was a tornado watch or warning (or, really, even a severe thunderstorm), I noticed the visible concern among adults. I'd heard the stories. Everybody seemed to have one. I also knew the signs and what to do. Some of my own first stories that I ever wrote were about a group of friends chasing tornadoes around Pennsylvania. Tornadoes, from what a young me simply assumed, were a common occurrence and constant deadly threat in our little corner of the state.

That, of course, isn't true. Pennsylvania is far from tornado alley. My fears were not irrational though. According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, there have been over 1,000 recorded tornado touch downs across the commonwealth since 1950 – and the fear that I saw on the faces of adults was due to fresh memories of the deadliest  tornado outbreak in Pennsylvania history.

On May 31, 1985, now 40 years ago, this devastating outbreak struck Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ontario. Dozens of twisters spawned throughout the region, claiming the lives of 89, injuring another 1,000, and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. The National Weather Service explains that the historic outbreak resulted from "high levels of atmospheric instability … triggered by the passage of a strong late-spring cold front" on an unseasonably hot spring day. Since this predated the implementation of the NEXRAD Doppler radar system (introduced in 1988 and drastically improving tornado predictions across the United States), many people in their paths only had minutes or even seconds to take cover.

In the early morning on that fateful Friday, the National Weather Service noted the possibility of severe weather that evening. At 4 p.m., they issued a thunderstorm warning which included northwestern Pennsylvania. Twenty-five minutes later, a Tornado Watch was officially issued for 5 through 11 p.m. The prediction proved eerily accurate as the outbreak's first tornado in Pennsylvania, which would soon devastate the small towns of Albion and Cranesville, touched down on the Ohio side of the state line at 4:59 p.m.

The tornado was an F4 on the Fujita Scale with winds reaching 260 miles per hour and a path width of 400 yards. Such winds can level houses, lift vehicles into the air with ease, and turn everyday items into deadly projectiles. As it approached Albion, the sky was described as an "eerie green and yellow." Hail pelted cars. According to the National Disaster Survey Report, it was approximately 5:05 p.m. when Gabby Brewster spotted the tornado southwest of town and rushed to the firehouse radio to broadcast a warning that, many later said, likely saved their lives.

The National Weather Service's warning officially went out at 5:13 p.m., two minutes before Albion took a direct hit. The impact leveled a 10-block area, killing nine people, and destroying two trailer parks. Russ Loomis, 61, described to the Los Angeles Times how he witnessed the "football field" size tornado jump over his convenience store and then, within 15 seconds, the "neighborhood exploded." Entire blocks were "turned into twisted, crumbling jumbles of lumber, plaster, brick, tree limbs, [and] furniture."

"[I]t was all over in 30 or 40 seconds," Niles Copeland, who had just arrived home from work, told the New York Times. He'd been looking up in the sky for what he assumed was a jet.

Eugene O'Brien, 64, was outdoors when the tornado struck. The winds were paralyzing. He held onto railroad ties as the chaos surrounded him. "I thought I was dying," he later told the Erie Times-News.

In an interview with Toni Polancy, Jerry Ellis, then 33, explained how he received a call from a neighbor about the approaching tornado. As he ran outside to check on his family, his wife Brenda and their daughter Heather were running towards him yelling that they needed to warn their neighbors. They went inside and to the basement as Ellis ran up his street, pounding on doors and shouting at people to take cover. He made it home and to their basement just as the house was being ripped off its foundation. He and Brenda held tightly onto their daughter.

"It sounded like a gigantic vacuum groaning and sucking and thrashing," Ellis told Polancy. Their home was gone 20 seconds later. They were physically unharmed.

Erie Times-News reporter George Miller interviewed Kathy Gibson, then 30, who was home with her two children when she heard what sounded like a train. Having survived a tornado only two years earlier, she recognized the sound and grabbed her young son while yelling for her napping teenage daughter.

"I opened the [basement] door and the stairs were gone," she told Miller. "Everything just came down." They were trapped, but fortunately all survived with only minor injuries.

The community was collectively shocked, grief-stricken, and overwhelmed in the aftermath of the 1985 tornados. Then governor Dick Thornburg declared a state of emergency and urged President Ronald Regan to send aid via The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), who set up 12 disaster relief centers in western Pennsylvania. (ETN archives)

The tornado continued towards Cranesville where it decimated Kennedy's Trailer Park, resulting in three more fatalities. In her mobile home, Christine Luthie, as later described to reporter Pat Howard, heard the approaching roar. Making a split-second choice that likely saved their lives, she picked up her toddler and ran for the woods. They were knocked to the ground by debris, but within seconds, their mobile home was gone. Only the stairs remained.

By 5:17 p.m., it was over. The tornado left a path of destruction over 14 miles long with around 80 reported injuries and over 300 homes and buildings destroyed or seriously damaged. Many houses were ripped completely from their foundations. The smell of natural gas was strong as downed powerlines sparked nearby.

That was only one of the dozens of tornadoes that tore through the region that day, leaving behind paths of scorched earth. An F2 tornado spawned in Linesville, traveling 4 miles over 5 minutes and killing one. An F3 touched down outside of Saegertown. At 5:25 p.m., another F4, also over 400 yards wide, hit the ground east of Waterford and traveled nearly 30 miles over 30 minutes. It destroyed homes north of Union City and killed dozens of cattle on a local farm. There were reports of a farmhouse completely lifted off of its foundation and a wagon thrown over a mile away. On its path, it leveled 50 more buildings and thousands of trees as it passed through Elgin and then Corry before crossing into Clymer, New York where it dissipated. There were no fatalities, but at least 17 were injured.

Meanwhile, east of Pymatuning State Park, another lethal F4 was on the ground. Over the course of an hour, it crossed 56 miles through Jamestown, Atlantic, Cochranton, Cooperstown, and Cherry Tree. This injured over 125 and resulted in another 16 fatalities.

The nightmarish evening spawned tornadoes in Centerville, Tionesta, Lamont, Tidioute, Big Bend, Kane, Big Beaver, and Watsontown, each ranging from F2 to F4 in strength. There was also an F5 – the only recorded F5 in Pennsylvania history – that traveled 47 miles between 6:30 p.m. and 7:35 p.m. and slammed into Wheatland, resulting in another 18 deaths and 310 injuries.

Communities were left in shambles. Many survivors were hospitalized for days. And then there were the deaths. Each person who died that day had their own story, their own family and friends left to grieve and pick up the pieces.

In Albion, among the fatalities was Luke Stahlsmith, a kindergarten student at Northwestern Elementary School. After neighbor Don Wickwire warned the family of the incoming tornado, a 4-month pregnant Sandra Stahlsmith, then 35, yelled for her children to get to the basement. They sat against the wall of their fruit cellar. As the first floor collapsed, a wall fell onto her as she held Luke in her arms, his neck pinned against a table. She tried with all of her strength to use her back to lift the wall off them, but it was simply too heavy. She heard her son's last breaths while waiting to be rescued.  "I'll never sleep again," she told the Associated Press days later, tears in her eyes.

"Everyone knows someone who lost a family member. Nobody really escaped the pain," Albion Mayor Bonda Dahlin told the Erie Times-News.

The other deaths in Albion and Cranesville were Debra Sherman, Stanley Kireta, Frances Kireta, Helen Sabovik, Jodi Lynn Snyder, Lena Keith, Lydia Taylor, Marie Eagley, Norman Elliot, Ralph Hecker, and William Revak. Each had their own story.

Reporter Ed Mathews wrote that it was "difficult to realize the scope of the pain and the heartbreak" until one saw the devastation in person and spoke with the survivors. When Governor Dick Thornburgh arrived the next day following the mobilization of the National Guard, he was described as being nearly in tears the entire day. He noted the "awful feeling of helplessness" over the destruction.

Ten Pennsylvania counties were declared disaster areas. State aid funding passed unanimously in Harrisburg and the governor personally called the White House to request federal aid, which was authorized by President Ronald Reagan that Monday. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) opened 12 disaster relief centers across western Pennsylvania. Donations of money, food, clothing, bedding, and more overwhelmed volunteers within the first day. The Times Publishing Company operated a relief effort and received over 2,000 phone calls. Residents offered affected families rooms in their homes, vacant apartments, and mobile campers. Dozens of organizations assisted with efforts and volunteers came from all over to assist along with the Red Cross and Salvation Army.

"While it is true that killer storms are – fortunately – few and far between here, they can happen and they did happen on May 31, 1985," the editors of the Erie Times-News reflected a few days after the deadly storms. "We have to live with that knowledge."

Three years later, the Associated Press published an article on the rebuilding of Albion. The town and its surviving residents were described as resilient, but they were also forever changed.

"People here still cringe the minute there's a dark cloud in the sky," stated Paul McKnight.

They had witnessed the immense power of nature firsthand. It wouldn't be forgotten. It couldn't be forgotten.

Jonathan Burdick runs the public history project Rust & Dirt. He can be reached at jburdick@eriereader.com