100 years later: Remembering the tornado that devastated Lorain
LORAIN, Ohio (WJW) – No one saw it coming.
June 28, 1924, was a hot Saturday, so Lakeview Beach was crowded. The Broadway shopping district was busy.
When the clouds darkened over the lake, they thought it was just a summer thunderstorm.
But by 5:30 p.m. that evening, about a third of Lorain homes, stores and even the shipyard and steel plant were all in ruins.
“The tornado first touched down in Sandusky, but just after 5 p.m. it landed at Lakeview Park,” Lorain Historical Society curator Kaitlyn Donaldson said.
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There were no grades for storms back then, but by some estimates the tornado was an F-4 with winds over 160 miles an hour.
People on the beach who ran into the bathhouse to escape the storm died when the building was swept away.
The twister moved inland, heading east and going right down Broadway. In the State Theatre, the roof and the balcony collapsed, killing 15 people and injuring dozens more.
Whole neighborhoods vanished.
“There were a lot of homes and churches on the east side of town that were damaged. There as well were a lot of wood homes and there was a lot of damage there,” Donaldson said.
In all, 78 people died in Lorain. More than 1,000 were injured and 7,000 people were homeless.
But within hours after the tornado tore through Lorain, help began to pour in from every nearby community.
“The police departments from neighboring communities came to Lorain fire departments as well. The National Guard was here that night. Within a day there were 1,500 national guardsmen here.” Donaldson said. “If you lost your home, between support from the community or the Red Cross or National Guard bringing in emergency tents, everyone had a roof over their heads within 24 hours.”
Donaldson says in the days that followed, rescuers went through every home and business and helped the injured.
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Local people and businesses pitched in with muscle and money.
“If you were an employee of the steel and you suffered damages from the tornado, you could apply for funding from the steel mill.” Donaldson said. “They sent their cranes downtown to dig through the rubble, so you saw the community coming together.”
And as news of the tornado spread around the nation, it went viral by 1924 standards.
Photographers from all over came to document the destruction and many photos were turned into postcards. The tragedy became a macabre tourist attraction.
“Lorainites were selling them to all the sightseers that were flooding into the city. They sold them to raise funds for the rebuilding and that’s one of the things you see in the newspapers, being overwhelmed by sightseers and gawkers who came to see what happened,” Donaldson said.
Most of the east side of Lorain was rebuilt after the disaster.
Streets that were leveled were made whole again, but signs of the tornado still remain.
The piers from the old bathhouse now hold up the newest one, and a lot of buildings that were heavily damaged were rebuilt.
The State Theatre was never replaced, but the Lorain Palace Theatre, which opened in 1928 with what the builders called tornado proof concrete, has no balcony.
“Architecturally the story of the downtown was forever changed. You were rebuilt completely after or you have some crazy architectural story where the fourth story was blown off and they just capped you at three stories when they were rebuilding,” Donaldson said.
By the end of the summer of 1924, Lorain was moving along a new course. It took years for the city to fully recover, but it did.
As the community prepares to mark the 100th anniversary of the storm, Donaldson says the story about the 1924 tornado is more than just about the destruction.
“Bringing it back to the people who lost their lives and remembering the Lorainites who did survive, but their lives were forever changed. Donaldson said.
The same tornado also killed 10 people in Sandusky in Erie County and heavily damaged that town along with Sheffield Lake and Avon.
On June 28, the historical society will hold a centennial remembrance ceremony in Lakeview Park.
If you would like more information about the 1924 tornado, you can follow this link.
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