Tuesday marks the 25th anniversary of one of the biggest disasters to ever hit Lebanon. Although no one was seriously injured, a tornado swept through part of the city on Nov. 10, 1995, leaving behind a large path of destruction. Like a lot of storms, the tornado touched down about six miles west of Lebanon on Missouri 32 and just a few minutes later the twister pushed its way east across the interstate and into the vicinity of where the Walmart Supercenter now sits, destroying and damaging many businesses and homes before disappearing as quickly as it appeared.
I’ve forgotten a lot of things over the years, but I will never ever forget that day. I couldn’t tell you at all what happened at school that day (I was 11 at the time), but I can still vividly remember the night. The tornado hit on a Friday night, which for my family meant movie night. After school, my mom loaded my sisters and me up in her car for a trip to town. We lived about halfway between Lebanon and Phillipsburg when I was growing up, and though that is not a long distance, it always felt like a big deal to go to town back then. We were going to return some tapes to Front Row Video 2 - our go-to video store back then that is sadly no longer around. We also were going to grab something to eat for dinner - another rarity for my family back then.
My mom drove through the drive-thru at Taco Bell and ordered kid’s meals for us. Taco Bell wasn’t my favorite as a kid, but I was pretty excited to get a toy from the new “Mask” cartoon series. The movie with Jim Carrey was one of my favorites growing up (and still is pretty fun to watch with my own kids). Spoiler alert - the cartoon based on it, was not very good.
As we left Taco Bell, it started getting dark as the clouds got thicker. At about the same time, I noticed the drop in light, it started to rain. In the short distance from Taco Bell to Front Row Video, which was located in a little shopping center where Champion Express is now, the rain increased to a downpour and the wind picked up to an alarming level. The closer we got to the store, the worse the weather became. Grass and clumps of mud began pelting the windshield. You could barely see a few feet in front of the car. I have no idea how my mom kept from wrecking that day. That small drive seemed like it took forever.
Right before we turned into the shopping center’s parking lot, I looked to the right to see the tornado heading our way. It was filled with debris and was threatening to engulf a liquor store, which was in the location where O’Reilly’s now sits. I started shouting at my mom about the tornado, as she pulled into the parking lot.
The plan was to jump out of the car and head into one of the businesses for shelter. All at the same time, my mom, sisters and I each opened a door to get out and were all promptly pushed back inside. The wind was too great to even fully open a car door.
My mother quickly instated a plan B and had us all get into the floorboard. Not being able to get outside probably saved our lives. Not long after ducking into the floorboard, the rear window of the car shattered and rained chunks of glass down on my sister and me. The car rocked and moved around. It was probably only seconds, but that was plenty of time for multiple prayers.
When the car stopped rocking, my mother told us to get out of the car. We were going to go into one of the businesses just in case the storm wasn’t over. Front Row Video and ETC Bridal were both along one stretch of the shopping center. Part of the shopping center’s roof had collapsed, dashing our hopes of getting out of the storm and rain there. My aunt worked at ETC and ushered us into the Pony Express convenience store that was next to those stores. The plate glass windows and burst, but the building was in much better shape than the other two.
Employees and customers from the other businesses had gone into the convenience store for shelter. We all huddled up in a back corner of the dark store. There was crying and shaking and even a little hysteria. As everyone was trying to figure out what had just happened, one woman pulled out a cigarette and started to light it. Another woman slapped her in the face, yelling at her about a gas leak. “Can’t you smell that gas,” she screamed at her.
It wasn’t long before someone from the convenience store asked everyone to go outside. It was a liability issue to have people in there with the gas leak and broken glass, I remember him telling us. When we went outside, I was shocked that it was snowing. Although we were into November, it was an unusually warm day. I had worn shorts to school that day, so here I was standing in the piling up snow in shorts and a short sleeve shirt. Thankfully, my mom was able to find someone to take us home pretty quickly.
Up until that day, I looked at tornadoes like they were some mythical thing that never happened. Now I pay attention to every single watch and warning. I can’t say that I’ve completely learned my lesson. When I moved back to Lebanon after graduating college, I bought a house in Lebanon’s tornado alley. In the past few years, we’ve lost all three trees in our front yard, one of which landed on our house and my car. But, at least this time I wasn’t in the car at the time.
Fines Massey is the editor of the Laclede County Record.
