Hudsonville Michigan Tornado (1956)
BackFatalities: 17
Injuries: 340
Path Length: 48 miles
Maximum Width: 400 yards
Rating: F5
Time: 6:30 to 7:30 pm
Shortly after the tornado that hit Saugatuck, Gibson, Graafschap and Holland had dissipated, another storm was bearing down on areas further east. The sky grew dark over Vriesland, a small settlement east of Zeeland, just after 6 PM.
Alan Vredeveld was in his house waiting out the storm when he noticed the wind pick up dramatically, becoming strong enough to "bend the windows in". When the wind died down he went outside and noticed that some baskets had blown around, but there was no damage to his farm. He did not see the tornado, but noticed the "funny yellow color" of the sky. His neighbor, a Mr. De Hoopt, told him that he and his family had watched from their basement as a funnel cloud touched down in a field east of 64th Street.
Meanwhile, a couple miles to the east, the tornado began its rampage. Floyd Boss was in his barn milking cows, when he noticed that light was shining on the barn floor. He looked up to see that half the roof was gone. The debris flew off towards his house, where a beam from the roof landed in front of the picture window and another board went through a bedroom window. A half mile further south, Stanley Boss, brother of Floyd, was also milking his cows, when the winds suddenly began roaring. He dove to the floor of the barn and noticed the barn walls moving in and out over a foot as the storm passed. The power went out. Floyd Boss walked outside his barn and noticed the roof of his chicken coop hanging from the power lines. The he saw what he thought was a fire in the woods to the north.
Many people mistook the tornado for a fire at this point, as debris, dust and water vapor was observed ascending rapidly from near the ground. With power out, Mr. Boss remained unaware that the storm that struck his farm was a tornado until the next day, when he also noticed that the tornado had left a 150-200 foot wide swath through the woods to the north, where large Beech trees were cleanly snapped off. The tornado intensified rapidly as it moved northeast towards Hudsonville.
People watching it from near Hudsonville would see it grow from a narrow, pencil-like funnel to a large and menacing wedge-shaped tornado as it approached the town. It crossed M-21 near 48th street and then crossed New Holland Street, where several farm homes were demolished and the tornado would claim its first fatality. Photos taken from the ground and from the air in the following days would show the scope of the destruction here.
The tornado moved across the "muck", a dark soil that consists of the silt of an old riverbed. The tornado picked this soil up and plastered everything in its path with it, including people, to the extent that many of the injured were unrecognizable even to their neighbors.
The tornado continued to intensify and demolished several homes when it reached the intersection of Van Buren Street and 40th Avenue. Some homes were completely swept away. It continued northeast to 36th Avenue and Port Sheldon Street and claimed eight more victims in this area. Two people died in a car while trying to flee the storm. Witnesses saw the car lifted as high as the tops of the telephone poles before it crashed back to earth. Two people in the car survived.
Another four people died nearby on Port Sheldon Street when they were caught out in the open and struck by flying debris. The tornado would claim one last victim in the Hudsonville area near Baldwin Street and 28th Avenue. The tornado was photographed around this time from about 2 miles south. The photo shows a large tornado funnel in contact with the ground, along with the yellow sky and greenish storm clouds that were mentioned by many eyewitnesses.
Coopersville Ferrysburg Grand Haven Holland
Hudsonville Zeeland Allendale Beechwood Jenison Spring Lake Allendale Charter Township Blendon Township Chester Township
Crockery Township Georgetown Charter Township Grand Haven Charter Township Holland Charter Township Jamestown Charter Township Olive Township Park Township Polkton Township Port Sheldon Township Robinson Township Spring Lake Township Tallmadge Charter Township Wright Township
Zeeland Charter Township Drenthe Eastmanville Marne
Channel: News & Politics
Uploaded: September 28, 2007 at 12:07 am
Author: Legend813a
Length: 00:02:00
Rating: 4.71
Views: 3576
Tags: Hudsonville Michigan Tornado 1956 severe weather storms f-5 ef-5 f5 ef5
Video Comments:
05763 (June 5, 2008 at 11:46 am)
What song it that??
FlingNdirt (February 9, 2008 at 10:12 am)
Great job putting this together..I was in this tornado as it passed by our house near Rockford
Folopak (October 23, 2007 at 9:33 pm)
haha cool its all black and white hah =D
Legend813a (December 10, 2007 at 10:34 am)
It happened back in 1956 you know...
BTW, I don't know what Folopak is all "hah" about ~ everyone knows that before The Beatles struck, the world WAS in black & white! LOL