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35 YEARS LATER: Residents remember deadly tornado outbreak that ripped through East Texas on Nov. 15, 1987

One of the worst tornado outbreaks in East Texas history happened during the fall.

TYLER, Texas — Nov. 15 is the anniversary of one of worst tornado outbreaks in East Texas history. 

On a windy and warm Sunday afternoon, two supercells began their march from the southwest to the northeast across East Texas. 

When that stormy Sunday afternoon was over, five people were dead, more than 200 were hurt and there were millions of dollars in damage.  

Monnie Johnson is a nurse at UT Health Jacksonville. She remembers Nov. 15, 1987. 

She was at Love’s Lookout down in the valley. One of the tornadoes was a long-tracked EF-3 tornado that traveled 33.5 miles through Cherokee and Smith counties. 

Jacksonville, Whitehouse and Chapel Hill suffered extensive damage. As the tornado tore its way through Cherokee County, it hit the house where Johnson sheltered at Love’s Lookout. 

“You could hear things hitting the house, a telephone poll went through the wall in the room above us", Johnson said recently during an interview about that day.  

That tornado killed four people hurt at least 80 others. All of the deaths were in mobile homes. When the roar of the tornado stopped, Johnson crawled out of the damaged house and found a working phone.

“I called my roommate who worked here at the hospital in the ER. I worked in the ICU and she told me to get here as quick as I could because we were getting loaded up with patients. And we wound up checking in about 65 patients in about two hours that had been injured from the debris," Johnson recalled.

 The debris and tornado blasted apart hundreds of buildings. It tore the roof off the Earles Chapel Community Church. 

Ben Mims was 9 years old but he remembers where the roof of the church landed. 

“I wanna say it was tossed back over that-away if I remember correctly," Mims said as he pointed toward the west. "They put some braces in here to keep the ceiling from collapsing until they were able to get a new roof on it.”

 The tornado also knocked over headstones in the century old cemetery.

There were several thunderstorms that raced across South and East Texas that afternoon. One of the supercells spun up an EF-2 tornado in Upshur County in the community of Diana. It traveled for seven miles before falling apart in Ore City in Upshur County. 

Later that evening, a EF-3 tornado touched down near Center in Shelby County. That tornado traveled 46.5 miles into southern part of Shreveport. 

Patty Rodewald was watching a play at the Lamplight Theater in Nacogdoches. Thankfully it was thunderstorms, not tornadoes that knocked out power, but somehow the show went on.

She remembers what the audience did in the face of adversity. 

"Some of the people in the cast, backstage and a few of the members of the audience went out to their cars," Rodewald said. "And they got their flashlights and knelt down at the edge of the stage, shone their lights in the stage and the small orchestra hit up, the performance proceeded as normal and it was one of the most awe-inspiring things I ever saw.”

Rodewald volunteers with Patsy McCleod at the Love’s Lookout Visitors Center. The November 1987 tornado hit close to Love's Lookout and it’s why McCleod stays prepared for bad weather all year long. 

“We take it very seriously. It’s bad weather and we act accordingly when we hear it’s coming," McCleod said. 

It’s encouraging to hear people talk about how they take fall severe weather season seriously. But how can people better prepared? 

Karen Holt with the Smith County Chapter of the American Red Cross shared the basics of an emergency kit. Here's what she said are must-haves for people's emergency kit.

  • Food and water for three days for you and your pets
  • Cell phone chargers
  • Batteries
  • First aid kit
  • Weather radio
  • Clothing

Holt recommended practicing an emergency plan because disaster knows no season. 

“I will tell you within a recent couple of weeks within a 24-hour time we had flooding, had tornadoes and we had some home fires and so being prepared at all times is very critical," Holt said. 

After 35 years since one of the worst tornado outbreaks in East Texas, Johnson is finally over the fear of severe weather but admits she doesn’t want to live through a day like that ever again. 

“Sure don’t, sure don’t," she said. 

RELATED: EF-2 tornado leaves an Athens business owner shaken

RELATED: Officials encourage East Texans to have a tornado safety plan

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