(1884 - 2023)
Since 1884, the year of the first documented tornado in Pickens County, there have been many minor and several devasting tornado occurrences. Much of the modern data - post 1950 - comes from the NOAA (National Atmospheric and Oceanographic Organization).
Of all of the tornado outbreaks in the County, the deadliest was in 1884, with some 20 people killed in Cagletown and elsewhere. Although this tornado happened before the Fujita Scale was invented, it was likely an F4 or F5.
There were tornadoes in 1932, 1965, 1970, and 1980 that didn't make this chart.
A chart from a Pickens County Hazard Assessment (NOTE: The deadly tornadoes of '94 are missing as are minor tornados from '75 and '80.)
(1884)
AJC from February 21, 1884, detailing the tornado that moved from Cagletown through Tate, to Grassy Knob.
In Tate, the Cool Springs Baptist and Refuge Baptist Churches were destroyed. 20 people died in that storm, at least three of them Cagles. On the way to Grassy Knob (present Mt. Oglethorpe) Long Swamp Baptist Church was also blown a half mile and torn to pieces.
The area of Northeastern Pickens known as Wildcat Cove was named for the aftereffects of the 1884 storm. So many trees were downed in that area, it was said that bobcats could cross the forest without touching the ground.
This storm was part of the Enigma Outbreak. See details below.
The “Enigma Outbreak,” Mississippi to Virginia,
19 February 1884
This event, sometimes known as the Great Tornado Outbreak of February 19, 1884, was named the “Enigma Outbreak” by Joseph Galway because of the wide variation in reported death toll. The outbreak appears to have been associated with a significant jet stream disturbance and surface low, similar to those present during the 1974 “Super Outbreak” (Event #11). While also similar in areal extent to the Super Outbreak, the Enigma Outbreak occurred mainly south of the Ohio River. The event began during the late morning in Mississippi and Alabama, spread rapidly east-northeast into Georgia and the Carolinas during the afternoon, and reached Virginia at night. An additional swath of tornadoes and other forms of damaging wind occurred from southeast Missouri and southern Illinois into southern Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. At least one of the tornadic thunderstorms continued east into the Atlantic, where a waterspout seriously damaged the schooner “Three Sisters” off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina.
Noted U.S. Signal Corps tornado researcher John P. Finley provided details on a total of 44 individual tornadoes in the event in his 1885 Tornado Studies for 1884. A later estimate by Finley (that has been repeated elsewhere) lists 60. In light of apparently comparable events in more recent decades, it seems that many tornadoes likely went unreported, especially in the more remote parts of the Appalachians. While most of the tornadoes remained in rural areas, the towns of Leeds, Alabama (east of Birmingham) and Columbus, Georgia were hit. The Monthly Weather Review described Leeds as being a scene of “great destruction” and that, of homes struck by the tornado, “not even their foundations remained.”
Contemporary accounts of the outbreak list as many as 370 deaths, including 200 in Georgia and 80 in South Carolina. These figures were based on telegraphic reports to newspapers from towns and villages along railroad lines; fatalities that may have occurred elsewhere likely were not reported. Many of the deaths included freed slaves living in isolated rural communities. Rumors spread that more than 2000 people had died. In 1887, Finley placed the total loss of life at 800, the number of injuries at 2500, and the number left homeless at 15,000. Finley did not indicate how he arrived at these values, but given his experience in documenting tornadoes, his estimates must be considered seriously. If correct, the 800 deaths would make 19 February 1884 the single deadliest tornado day in recorded history in the United States.
(1932)
Mar 1932 Pickens Progress article about the tornado.
On Mar 21, 1932, a giant tornado outbreak hit Cherokee and Pickens County. In particular homes in the Talmadge and Holt area of the county were destroyed. Hiram Childers completely had his home leveled. It even knocked a hole in the western brick gable of the second county courthouse downtown causing parts of the roof to collapse injuring Olen Cagle. Other structures belonging to famous Pickens families like Atherton, Padgett, McClain, Moss, Cagle, Low, and Lawson happened. The storm damage was a half-mile wide and several miles long.
This storm was part of the Deep South Outbreak. See details below.
The “Deep South Outbreak,” Alabama to Southern Appalachians,
21 - 22 March 1932
This event ranks as the third deadliest of all outbreaks since 1870, with 27 killer tornadoes, the most since the “Enigma Outbreak” of 1884. Ten of these were rated “violent” (F4 or F5 intensity). Most of the 334 deaths occurred in Alabama, but others occurred in Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Considering its rather late occurrence relative to the beginning of modern-era Weather Bureau tornado records in 1916, the 21-22 March 1932 outbreak is poorly documented in official reports. The Bureau publication that included annual tornado summaries during this period was the Monthly Weather Review. Given the slim nature of most issues of the Review in 1932 relative to previous years, it appears that budget cuts related to the Great Depression may have adversely affected Review tornado tabulations. The event was, nevertheless, well-covered by the popular press.
The 4 April 1932 issue of Time magazine, for example, described the tragic death and destruction produced by the tornadoes. In one case, a tornado tore an infant from its mother’s arms and then dropped the baby into a well, where it drowned. Galway, in his 1981 Weatherwise contribution, related the story of Mr. Luther Kelley, who lost his second wife to a tornado that struck Sylacauga, Alabama (near Birmingham) around dusk, leaving 1300 homeless. Mr. Kelley’s first wife had died in a tornado in the same town in 1917. Another oddity occurred in nearby Columbiana, where a tornado killed 18 people. The storm totally destroyed a house, yet left three dozen eggs unbroken on a kitchen table.
Two waves of tornadic storms affected Alabama. The first occurred during the afternoon over the western part of the state; the second during the evening over central and northern sections. The town of Northport (near Tuscaloosa) was especially hard-hit. Its main business center was destroyed, and 100 homes were leveled. Entire families were killed near Lawley (between Birmingham and Montgomery) by a long-track F4. Other killer tornadoes struck eastern Georgia and upstate South Carolina after midnight.
(1959)
On February 10, 1959, Pickens County resident, Mrs. Alson Worley lost her home in when a F1 tornado passed through.
(1965)
The April 15, F2 tornado hit the Jerusalem Church area.
Gober Murphy lost a house and E.A. Roper lost a chicken house.
(1970)
Likely an F1, This tornado hit the area on April 13.
Wayne Cantrell of Hill City lost his chicken house roof when a small tornado landed in the West part of the county.
(1974)
The April 11, 1974, Pickens Progress highlighted the extensiveness of the damage. Yellow Creek Church was destroyed by the F4 tornado, leaving behind an intact bible and pulpit.
Although six people died in the tornado, only one victim was from Pickens County. Nine families from Pickens lost their homes in this storm.
(3) The “Super Outbreak,” Midwest, Ohio Valley, and South, 3 – 4 April 1974
The Super Outbreak of tornadoes of 3-4 April 1974 remains the most outstanding severe convective weather episode of record. Although not the most deadly outbreak, the event surpassed previous and succeeding events in severity, longevity, and extent. The following statistics only partly convey its enormity:
148 tornadoes, 95 of which were F2 or stronger, 30 of which were “violent” (F4 or F5), and 48 of which were killers
Combined path length of tornadoes at least 2500 miles; one tornado with path length >100 miles
One or more F2 or stronger tornadoes in progress during each three-hour period between midday 3 April and early morning 4 April; fifteen tornadoes in progress simultaneously at height of the outbreak 335 deaths; more than 6000 injured
Tornadoes occurred in thirteen states and Canada; ten states declared federal disaster areas
Further appreciation for the enormity of the Super Outbreak may be gleaned from the graph at the lower left corner of this panel. The graph, courtesy of Harold Brooks, depicts the maximum annual week-long running total of F2 or greater tornadoes from 1921 through 2011. Entire years that are noted for their prominent tornado counts (e.g. 1953, 2003, and 2011) pale in comparison to the 18-hour period that began around midday on Wednesday, 3 April 1974. Twenty-five F3 or greater long-track tornadoes (those with path lengths > 25 miles) occurred during the same period, more than triple the number annually reported since 1880.
The first tornado in the Super Outbreak touched down near Morris, Illinois (about 45 miles southwest of Chicago) around 2:15 p.m. CDT, producing minimal damage; the last one overturned trailers and removed roofs in Baton, North Carolina (about 65 miles east of Asheville) at 7:00 a.m. EDT the next morning. Between these two events, three separate waves of tornadic storms spread havoc from southern Michigan and southern Ontario south and southeast through Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the Gulf Coast states, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia.
The most intense tornadoes avoided the cores of major cities in the region. But portions of metropolitan Birmingham, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Windsor (Ontario) were hard-hit. An F5 storm leveled a large part of Xenia, Ohio (southeast of Dayton) during the late afternoon, killing at least 30 people. Similar tornadoes struck the towns of Brandenburg, Kentucky (southwest of Louisville), and Guin, Alabama (northwest of Birmingham); both communities lost about two percent of their residents to the storms. A vicious, one-half mile wide tornado cut a swath more than 100 miles long in northern Indiana and destroyed the county courthouse in Monticello. Farther south, a pair of violent, long-lived tornadoes tore through northern Alabama during the early evening. They partly followed nearly identical paths, both of which extended at least 50 miles and together claimed 50 lives. One man, injured by the first storm, was killed when the church to which he had been taken was hit by the second storm a half-hour later. Long-track tornadoes traveled up and down mountainsides in the southern Appalachians through the night, dispelling the notions that tornadoes are disrupted by rough terrain and that the worst storms occur during the warmest time of the day.
The Super Outbreak was well-forecast. Nearly every tornado and severe weather report was contained within the severe weather outlook issued by the National Severe Storms Forecast Center (NSSFC; predecessor to the Storm Prediction Center) early on the morning of 3 April. Most of the deaths occurred in valid tornado watches, and most of the tornadoes also were preceded by warnings. The large death toll, however, illustrated that the nation’s warning system is of limited value when storms are numerous, intense, and fast-moving. Warning dissemination was hampered by over-taxed teletype communication lines and, especially, by delays that occurred at relay points between intrastate warning circuits. To address these issues, the National Weather Service (formerly, the Weather Bureau) survey team assembled after the event recommended accelerated deployment of the Service’s planned automated internal communication system, later known as AFOS. The team also suggested expansion of the then-fledgling NOAA Weather Radio network to facilitate warning dissemination. Weather radio proved valuable for rapid and efficient communication of storm information in those cities where the system already was in operation (Atlanta, Detroit, Indianapolis, and St. Louis).
As with the Palm Sunday Outbreak, University of Chicago researcher T. Theodore Fujita and his associates conducted a comprehensive investigation of the Super Outbreak immediately following the event, documenting tornado tracks and intensities with aerial photography. In addition to documenting the destruction caused by the tornadoes themselves, his efforts helped clarify the role played by thunderstorm downburst winds. These localized bursts of high wind often occur near tornadoes, enlarging storm damage swaths. Fujita’s findings also confirmed that similar bursts of wind in the absence of tornadoes had caused several significant airplane mishaps in the mid 1970s. Building on his work with the Palm Sunday event, Fujita’s Super Outbreak studies also further demonstrated how suction vortices, small-scale circulations within a tornado, produce the narrow corridors of significantly enhanced damage often observed.
Harry Roper, 23, of Pickens County died from the injuries he received when the tornado flattened his house.
(1975)
Although the March 24, 1975, tornado just skirted through the northwest corner of the county as an F1, Northwestern Atlanta got nailed and 3 people died. The roof of Governor Busbee's mansion on West Paces Ferry got torn off and over 100 homes were destroyed. Damage was also reported in Forsyth, Gilmer, and Fannin counties.
(1980)
On April 8, 1980, a small tornado touched down in the Jerusalem area flipping over the mobile home of Harold Brannon, Jr., and destroyed Bill Manning's chicken house.
(1985)
Very little is known about the F2 that hit the county April 5, 1985.
(1994)
Bill Rolland was one of the lucky ones, even though he lost 100,000 chickens, he and his family remained safe during the Palm Sunday F3 and F4 tornadoes.
Nine people from Pickens County died at three different locations. when an F3 and F4 tornado came through on March 27, 1994. Six were from the Billy Joe Turner family. Two other ladies, Mamie Stokes Davis, and Paulette Warner were killed in the storm. Lila Whitfield, who was a postmaster died from injuries sustained in the tornado. 48 homes were destroyed in total.
(2002)
On November 11, 2002, Destiny Fincher of Pickens County was torn from her mother's arms and thrown some 50 feet into the bank of a nearby pond. Their trailer was destroyed as were 26 other homes in the county. Destiny was one of nine county residents who were injured.
The November 11, 2002, F-2 tornado in Pickens was part of a series of tornados across the Southeastern United States and left more than 200 injured. In the picture above, about half of Davis Barbecue is left intact.
(2009)
Pickens Progress article on the F1 tornado that hit April 10, 2009
The 2009 tornado started in Ludville and moved east before tearing the roof off of many homes on Grandview Road and the Big Stump Mountain area located within Bent Tree before exiting through Big Canoe. It had felled more than 10,000 trees and damaged at least 15 homes.
(2011)
The remains of houses on the West part of Pickens County in the aftermath of the April 27, 2011, F-3 tornado.
During this storm, 121 structures were damaged and 23 homes were completely devasted. The storm moved from Talmadge to Hinton, much in the same way that the storm of 1932 had.
More damage from the 2011 tornado that hit near Henderson Mountain.
The “Dixie Outbreak,” Mississippi – Tennessee – Alabama – Georgia, 27 April 2011
After several noteworthy tornado outbreaks earlier in the year, including one over the lower and mid Mississippi Valleys on New Year’s Day, and another over the Carolinas and mid Atlantic states on 16 April, a persistent large-scale weather pattern set the stage for three consecutive days of widespread severe weather over the south central and southeastern United States beginning on 25 April. The event culminated with an outbreak of multiple killer tornadoes over parts of Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia on Wednesday, 27 April that, at least in the latter two states, rivaled or exceeded that of the Super Outbreak.
A solid line of intense thunderstorms that evolved from severe storms over parts of Texas and Louisiana the previous evening swept rapidly east-northeast across Mississippi, Alabama, and southern middle Tennessee during the pre-dawn hours of the 27th. The storms packed 70 mph wind gusts and more than a dozen tornadoes, some rated EF3. Widespread damage to power and communication lines left the region more vulnerable to two additional waves of severe weather that occurred later in the day.
A second area of destructive storms that originated over southern Arkansas early in the day moved across northern Mississippi and Alabama during the mid to late morning with additional severe weather. But the outbreak got underway in earnest around noon CDT, as a band of powerful supercells formed over central and eastern Mississippi. The storms spawned numerous tornadoes, many violent and long-track, as they raced east-northeast across Alabama, southern Tennessee, and Georgia through the remainder of the day and into the night.
The first tornado of this series was a vicious EF5 that produced incredible damage on the north side of Philadelphia, Mississippi (northwest of Meridian) around 2:30 p.m. Homes were swept away, vehicles were thrown, and the ground was scoured to a depth of two feet. The storm continued for 29 miles into Kemper and Noxubee Counties as additional tornadoes began to form in rapid succession elsewhere in eastern Mississippi and the northern half of Alabama. A devastating multi-vortex storm struck the city of Cullman, Alabama (south of Huntsville) around 3:00 p.m. The EF4 caused extensive destruction, wiping out nearly 900 homes and 100 businesses. Another northern Alabama tornado that began around 3:00 p.m. devastated the city of Hackleburg in Marion County. The EF5 continued northeastward on a two-hour, 132-mile path into southern Tennessee. Countless homes and businesses were destroyed, with foundations swept completely clean. The tornado claimed 72 lives and at times was more than one mile wide.
Around 3:45 p.m., a very violent tornado touched down near the town of Smithville, Mississippi (southeast of Tupelo). The EF5 storm completely destroyed a police station, a post office, and several well-built homes. A pickup truck parked in front of one of the homes has yet to be found. The tornado path widened to three-quarters of a mile as it entered Alabama, where houses were destroyed near Hamilton and Shottsville. The storm caused 23 deaths and had a path length of 55 miles.
At 5:10 p.m., a very large and exceptionally destructive EF4 tornado struck the city of Tuscaloosa. The storm swept away entire apartment buildings, shopping centers, and a school, producing numerous fatalities and injuries. The tornado reached the western and northern suburbs of Birmingham less than one hour later (see radar images at left), where the path width exceeded one mile. Nearly total devastation occurred in some areas along a track similar to that of violent tornadoes that struck the Birmingham area in 1956, 1977, and 1998. In total, the tornado remained on the ground for more than 80 miles and claimed 64 lives. The supercell responsible for the Tuscaloosa - Birmingham tornado began in Newton County, Mississippi (west of Meridian) around 3:00 p.m. and tracked for nearly 400 miles before finally dissipating over Macon County, North Carolina late in the evening (see figure at left). The same storm also produced an EF4 tornado in Ohatchee, Alabama (between Anniston and Gadsden) that continued east to near Rome, Georgia.
Later in the evening, other EF4 tornadoes touched down in northeast Alabama, northwest Georgia, and eastern Tennessee, producing additional deaths and injuries, although these storms were not as long-lasting as those that occurred earlier in the day. A total of 313 lives were lost to tornadoes during the 24-hour period beginning 8:00 a.m. 27 April 2011, making it the most deadly 24-hour period for tornadoes since 21-22 March 1932. Total damage was estimated at $4-5 billion dollars
(2023)
Damage at Padsett Court in Bent Tree from the storm.
On July 20, 2023, two tornadoes touched down in Pickens County. One was a E-0 that touched down on Carver Mill Road in Hinton, and the other an EF-1 that touched down on Fitts Road, between Bent Tree and Big Canoe, north of Cove Road.
Destruction at the Sallie Doss area as seen from Lake Tamarack
Photo Credit: Alicia Klenk
Downed trees along Fitts Road in East Pickens County
At least two dozen homes sustained major damage from the storm. Fortunately, no deaths occurred.
In conclusion, Since 1884, I've been able to count 14 tornados that have hit Pickens County. Of those 12 of them occurred between February and April with half of them being in the first two weeks of April. Many of the tornados were parts of larger weather events, especially the outbreaks of 1884, 1974, and 1994.
(1936, Gainesville)
The deadliest tornado in Georgia's history took place on April 6, 1936, when two F4 tornadoes killed over 200 people and injured 1,600.
To this day, it remains the deadliest in Georgia's history and ranks among the deadliest in the nation. Once again, another outbreak during the first two weeks of April.
References:
Flora, S. D., 1954: Tornadoes of the United States, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman;
Galway, J. G., 1981: Ten Famous Tornado Outbreaks, Weatherwise, June; Grazulis, T. P., 1993: Significant Tornadoes: 1680 – 1991, Environmental Films, St. Johnsbury, VT;
Ludlum, D. M., 1975: The Great Tornado Outbreak of 1884, Weatherwise, April;
Pickens County Progress - various years and authors, to include Dan Pool and Angela Reinhardt
Atlanta Journal Constitution - Various years
Pickens County Hazard Assessment