Tornado section

The Eastern New Mexico News

Commemorative edition: $1.00

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Courtesy photo

An unidentified child surveys damage south of Brady Avenue the morning after the worst tornado in Clovis’ history.

Remembering March 23, 2007: The storm of a century

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en years ago tonight, eastern New Mexico was slammed by the most damaging tornadoes in at least a century.

Two people died, dozens were injured and hundreds of homes and businesses were destroyed.

Today we remember the destruction, and a community coming together to heal.

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By the clock

National Weather Service issues a tornado watch until 2:20 p.m. The 10 p.m. for Curry, Quay and Roosevelt counties. The watch means conditions favor thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes.

tornado strikes a 12-block area in 3:12 p.m. ALogan.

About a dozen people report injuries and two are transported to the hospital in Tucumcari for treatment. About 30 mobile homes are destroyed, including most of those in the Sunshine Trailer Park on Fourth Street.

7:30 p.m.

Grande Vida Dairy off of NM 202 in Roosevelt County is destroyed by a tornado. Dairy workers are trapped briefly but not seriously injured. About 300 dairy cows are killed by the storm or suffer injuries that result in their being slaughtered.

I don’t think that I’ve ever seen anything like this. I feel devastated by what I’ve seen firsthand. It makes you want to cry.

Clovis Mayor David Lansford, March 23, 2007

A tornado six miles southeast of Clovis destroys homes on Curry Road 4. The twister is ultimately responsible for two deaths, 35 injuries and damage to about 500 homes and businesses.

7:54 p.m.

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The Eastern New Mexico News

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Cars were tossed about like toys throughout southeast Clovis.

911 calls tracked storm through Clovis

By David Stevens EDITOR dstevens@thenews.email

D

an Blair was home, watching an NCAA tournament basketball game, when “Doppler” Dave Oliver broke in to report a tornado was sighted near Bailey County in Texas. Moments later, the Amarillo meteorologist broke into the game again to say a large twister was headed straight for Clovis.

“I got out of the chair, told my wife I was going to work, and she said ‘I’m going with you,’” Blair said. “She said she wasn’t going to stay home by herself during a tornado.”

When they arrived at the

police station, the Blairs no longer needed a weatherman to know which way the big wind was blowing. They could tell from the 911 calls.

The tornado formed in Portales, and headed north down U.S. 70 like an out-ofcontrol Peterbilt.

“It’s in the middle of the highway. Just send somebody, please,” a man told dispatchers about 8 p.m. on March 23, 2007.

“There’s power lines down and houses with roofs off and stuff,” another caller reported.

“My neighborhood is destroyed,” said another. “My neighbor’s house is on top of my house. Hurry.”

“We need an ambulance. The trailer right across the street

just blew. ... My neighbor’s hurt,” cried still another.

The calls for help lasted almost 15 consecutive minutes. The tornado that first leveled a Roosevelt County dairy began hitting southeast Clovis, yo-yoing from the clouds to the treetops, rumbling past the railroad tracks and continuing north — 200 yards wide, from Oak to Sycamore streets — to 21st Street before returning to the angry skies.

National Weather Service officials said the worst tornado in the history of ClovisPortales was on the ground for 36 minutes. Hundreds of cattle died. Power was out for days.

More than 50 homes were destroyed and about 500 more homes, businesses and storage

sheds sustained serious damage. Five people were hospitalized, dozens were injured and two suffered critical injuries responsible for their deaths days later.

Police Chief Blair and other first-responders through Curry and Roosevelt counties were up all that Friday night, helping those who were hurt, searching door-to-door in the dark for bodies, spray painting the piles of rubble after they were checked.

The sun brought little relief.

“Saturday was awful, starting at first light,” Blair said.

Roads and yards were littered with everything from tree limbs to furniture and clothing. Vehicles were on their sides or upside down.

Family pets that survived were running loose, their owners frantically searching, while also looking for irreplaceable photos and other memorabilia, at the same time wondering where they’d live and if their material world could ever be rebuilt.

Adding to the mayhem: Hours before the twister hit Clovis-Portales, another storm wiped out a trailer park near Ute Lake in Quay County, so Red Cross workers and volunteers were trying to help out there. Plus, Blair said the devastation around Clovis attracted hundreds of unwanted, curious onlookers.

“Everybody wanted to come see,” Blair said.

■■■ Tornado wrapped in rain as it plowed through city

Staff photo: Tony Bullocks

R.J. Gurule, 2, celebrated life after the storm in his greatgrandmother's yard on Mississippi Street.

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he Clovis tornado was classified as an EF2 on a six-point scale — EF0 to EF6, with EF6 being the worst.

Windspeeds were estimated at 110 mph to 137 mph. Officials said the tornado was stronger when it hit the Portales dairy and began weakening as it reached Clovis.

Weakening being a relative term.

Clovis Body Shop, at 2024 S. Prince, and nearby CBS Auto Recyclers saw dozens of old cars tossed about like toys.

Carquest Auto parts on Mabry Drive had an entire wall blown down.

Baxter-Curren Senior Citizens Center, Yucca Junior High and Lockwood Elementary School were all seriously damaged.

City of Clovis officials immediately declared more than 50 still-standing buildings too dangerous to occupy.

The tornado came wrapped in rain — almost 2 inches fell in a few hours — and area streets were flooded all night.

Lightning provided additional danger.

Robert Calloway was out of town that night and learned the next morning that his home near U.S. 70 had been struck by lightning and burned to the ground.

“My landlord called and told me don’t bother coming home because I had nothing left,” Calloway said.

Peggy Brown, who lived in the 4000

block of South Prince, said debris from her property filled 15 dump trucks.

Ann Wilkins’ home on South Prince survived, but a nearby shop, chicken house and hay barn were destroyed.

While the barn was lost, packaged light bulbs and china stored inside were not damaged.

“What was ironic was that my grandmother’s (Wilkins) house was 20 feet away from her barn and she never even had a picture fall off of the wall,” Britni Sherwood said.

“All kinds of debris came over from Clovis Body Shop, but nothing came into the house. (Debris) landed in her front and back yard and knocked out her front glass door, but that was it.”

The Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association estimated storm damages to homes and vehicles across New Mexico that day were $16.5 million.

More than 5,000 claims were made on homes and autos.

But not everyone was honest.

Emergency management officials said some requests for assistance came from residents nowhere near the tornado’s path.

And one woman, Lori Howard, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after she was convicted of stealing $145,000 in tornado relief money as an employee of Eastern Plains Council of Governments.

The Eastern New Mexico News

Page 4

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The Salvation Army and others fed almost 2,000, and found rooms for more than 100 victims — within 24 hours of the tornado touchdown.

Volunteers, donations arrive with the next day’s sunrise

H

elp arrived, starting at daybreak.

Clovis Mayor David Lansford said he knew immediately efforts would have to be made to organize volunteers because there were so many.

The Curry County Fairgrounds was established as the headquarters for assigning tasks that ranged from hauling off debris to helping with repairs to passing out food and water.

Hundreds of volunteers

came from Cannon Air Force Base alone. And hundreds of others came by themselves, with their families or their churches or civic organizations.

Eric Uranga, along with other members of his church, were among those roaming the neighborhoods, passing out food and drinks, and asking how they could help.

“It’s our duty,” he said.

Donations poured in as well.

By sundown that Saturday,

Salvation Army officials reported: ■ 25 cases of water had been donated to the impacted neighborhoods; ■ about 130 people had been placed in hotels; ■ and almost 2,000 meals had been served to victims at a shelter established at Rock Staubus gym.

A week after the storm, donations were still flowing, from business owners, civic groups and even children.

Eleven fourth-graders from

Lazbuddie raised $600 and donated it to the Salvation Army to help tornado victims.

And government officials declared the area a disaster, freeing tax dollars for assistance.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson arrived less than 48 hours after the tornado to survey damage.

In all, federal and state disaster declarations netted more than $7 million to help with recovery.

Barbara Mullinax lost two evergreen trees and a barn, but the only damage to her home on South Prince was broken glass.

She said she would not forget the close call, or those who helped clean up.

“I have nothing but praise for the base people coming out here on Sunday morning in busloads, the National Guard, the police out here patrolling,” she said. “They were just wonderful.”

■■■ Night of the twister Th e National W eather Service recorded 10 different tornadoes in eastern New Mexico on March 23, 2007. Four twisters were formed in Lea and Roosevelt counties, with one each born in Quay and Eddy counties.

Here are some tidbits from the devastating evening: ■ Seven of the 10 cyclones received F0 ratings from NWS, meaning windspeeds were less than 73 mph and damage was light.

■ The twister at Logan received an F1 rating,

meaning windspeeds were 73 to 112 mph and damage was moderate. About a dozen people were injured, including two who were transported to the hospital in Tucumcari with minor injuries.

■ The Logan damage was primarily confined to about 50 manufactured homes and recreational vehicles. The tornado path was about 3 miles long and 200 yards wide.

■ The F2 tornado that began 7.5 miles of McDonald in Lea County did little damage in populated areas. The most significant damage occurred

7.5 miles southwest of Tatum over ranchland.

NWS reported 13 wooden power poles were damaged, including three that snapped off at ground level.

■ A water trough weighing an estimated 300 pounds was thrown several hundred feet by the Lea County tornado.

■ The night’s most damaging tornado started in Roosevelt County and was on the ground for 36 minutes before lifting into the clouds. It was responsible for two deaths in Clovis.

■ The twister destroyed a dairy outside Portales and led to the deaths of about 300 dairy cows in Roosevelt County. The Portales city water well facility also sustained heavy damage.

■ About 500 homes and businesses saw some damage in Clovis. More than 50 homes were destroyed. The southeast section of the city was hit hardest. Five people were hospitalized and about three dozen suffered injuries. The deaths were the first tornado fatalities in New Mexico since 1974.

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The Eastern New Mexico News

Where were you?

Everyone involved remembers

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Southeast Clovis was without power the night of the storm and parts of the city remained without electricity for several days.

■■■ Survivor: You never know when you might get blown away

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ornado sirens sounded about 20 minutes before the twister slammed into Clovis.

Shirley Boothe said she never heard them, though she’d received a phone call from a relative warning her of danger.

“I just thought it was a real bad rain storm and would blow over and that was it,” she said.

Then she saw a window begin to open “like a zipper” and something hit her.

Boothe said her face was wet when she woke up in a neighbor’s yard.

She was trapped under rubble, unable to get up because one foot was broken, the other badly injured.

She remembers it was raining, her mouth was extremely dry and she really wanted water to drink. And so she tried to wipe the moisture on her face into her mouth, only it wasn’t water. She was bleeding from a cut on her head.

She remembers raising her right arm and waving to attract attention when help arrived. Once rescued, she learned her hair and clothes were soaked with blood.

She was hospitalized for three weeks but survived.

A man Boothe was helping care for in her home did not survive.

Walter “Snap” Cravy was also found lying in rubble about 40 feet from where he’d been sitting on the couch in Boothe’s home when the tornado struck.

Boothe called to Cravy in the dark and was relieved to hear him reply, though he was clearly disoriented.

“Shirley,” he said, “is the window open?”

Cravy, like Boothe, spent the next

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three weeks in a Lubbock hospital.

But he had suffered multiple broken bones and other injuries and died on April 12, 2007, at age 90.

The tornado’s other casualty, Heleneta Blevins, was also 90 and living in a mobile home that night.

She died four days later from injuries suffered in the storm.

Boothe, now 75 and living in Gatesville, Texas, wrote a book — “An’ the Beat Goes on ... and on” — for her grandchildren that featured her tornado story.

The book also included some of her favorite recipes, photos of the storm’s aftermath and some lighter moments that came from the tragedy.

Boothe lists things “not to do” before a tornado, all of which she did: ■ She suggests not doing home maintenance or washing the car before both are destroyed in a tornado. And she suggests securing the lid on paint cans — so they don’t end up in the dryer.

In a telephone interview this month, she also encouraged anyone with family heirlooms not keep them stored away, but use them whenever possible.

“I lost dishes (in the tornado) that had belonged to my great grandmother,” she said.

“Those things ... I was so proud to have them. I encourage everyone that has something they’ve put up to save and wait until later to use for something special — get them out and use them. You don’t know if you’re going to get blown away the next day or not.”

Some stories in this report are from the archives of The Eastern New Mexico News.

I just thought it was a real bad rain storm.

Shirley Boothe, area resident

en years later, area residents still recall details about their tornado adventures.

Johnny Jimenez was driving home on U.S. 70 when flying debris forced him to stop.

“I just pulled over and hunkered down and my truck just started getting battered,” he said.

When calm returned, Jimenez said his truck had flipped and he had to exit through a back window and seek help from another motorist.

“I just kept thinking, ‘Don’t take me now, because I have to see my kids grow up,’” he said.

Mindy Smith said she and her children were fleeing their home en route to a relative’s house when she drove headlong into the twister.

“We were on two wheels, I know we were,” Smith said.

“We’re just lucky to be alive. I know God was with us.”

One of the family’s goats was killed in the storm.

Terri Garcia said her family also lost goats in the storm, in addition to her home on South Prince.

The Eastern New Mexico News

Page 6

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The Sept. 18, 1944, Clovis News-Journal reported on the city's first major tornado.

Twisters have made mark on area T

he tornado that hit Clovis-Portales on March 23, 2007, was unusual, but not unheard of.

On Sept. 17, 1944, eight small homes were demolished and other structures were “partially wrecked,” when a tornado hit downtown Clovis, according to the Clovis News-Journal.

One woman suffered a lacerated scalp and possible back injury when the roof of her Clovis home at 501 Oak was blown off in the storm.

Across the street, at 506 Oak, the storm was also responsible for a young boy suffering a broken arm when a stove fell on him.

The newspaper reported the child was 3 or 4 years old.

One other small boy received cuts on his face from flying glass.

Wilma Fulgham was 13 when the 1944 twister destroyed a shed outside her family’s home at Fifth and Lea. The shed housed a horse named Star.

“It lifted (the shed) up in the air and just knocked her down, but didn’t hurt (the horse),” Fulgham recalled in a 2007 interview. “It tore that shed up and scattered my saddle, blanket and everything for several blocks.”

Fulgham said the 1944 twister also tossed her mother’s canned fruit into a neighboring lot, “but didn’t break a jar.”

Ira Brown’s rent house at 515 Lea lost its roof in the violence early that Sunday

evening.

Fulgham said she did not remember seeing a funnel from the clouds, but remembers “the clouds looked like they were boiling.”

The newspaper reported Mrs. Euel Smith did see it coming, over Hotel Clovis and down Main Street. “I noticed cars parked on Main shaking and then I looked up and saw the whitish, funnel-shaped cloud spewing and whirling.

I thought for a minute it was going to take the hotel with it,” she said.

It didn’t, but a city lumber yard sustained about $5,000 in damages, and numerous trees were uprooted or otherwise destroyed across town.

Eastern New Mexico

almost every spring is placed under a tornado watch or warning, but most of the twisters stay over empty ranchland if they evolve at all.

The tornadoes that hit Clovis, Portales and Logan on March 23, 2007, caught many by surprise, despite warning sirens and television/radio warnings.

“Any time you have any kind of disaster like that, it kind of reminds people it can happen to us,” said former Clovis and Curry County Emergency Planning Director Ken De los Santos. “That storm, we knew it was coming. We had been following it all day.”

But believers were hard to come by since tornadoes happen here so rarely.

Of historical significance: ■ Curry County has recorded five F2 tornadoes since records have been kept — on June 10, 1932, Sept. 17, 1944, May 24, 1957, June 11, 1964, and on March 23, 2007. An F2 includes wind speeds greater than 110 mph. The county has not seen a tornado greater than F2 in 85 years of record keeping.

■ Roosevelt County has recorded two F3 tornadoes in its history — in 1939 and 1949. No one was injured in either storm. An F3 includes wind speeds 138 to 167 mph.

■ Curry County has been hit by tornadoes 49 times since 1932.

■ Eastern New Mexico had never seen a death attributed to a tornado prior

to 2007, when two died.

■ Curry County had recorded only 10 tornadorelated injuries prior to March 23, 2007.

Seven Clovis residents were hurt in 1944, two county residents were injured in 1932 and one was injured in 1964.

■ Prior to 2007, the last 15 tornadoes to hit Curry County were rated EF0, meaning wind speeds were less than 73 mph.

■ No significant, widespread tornado damage has occurred in Curry or Roosevelt counties since 2007.

Sources: National Weather Service, tornadoproject.com, newspaper archives of The Eastern New Mexico News

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The Eastern New Mexico News

The Daily Miracle took literal meaning in the face of a storm I

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This map shows locations where damage occurred in Clovis.

remember the day and night of the 2007 eastern New Mexico tornado like a breath ago, not a decade.

My memories begin the afternoon before, on March 22.

I was stuck to the seat of a sweltering passenger jet caught on the tarmac in a rare desert rain deluge that shut down the Phoenix airport. I was headed to Albuquerque after business meetings to make a connecting flight to Clovis.

By the time we finally landed at the Sunport, my Clovis plane was long gone.

The next morning at the airport was more frustration.

Multiple equipment delays ended with me flying to Roswell that afternoon. A coworker drove there to pick me up after a stomachchurning rollercoaster flight and landing.

I can still see trees stripped bare of leaves at the airport and through town; it was just after a hailstorm and high winds struck.

The 90-mile drive from Roswell to Clovis is a blur today except the image that we were being chased by the blackest skies I saw in our 14 years in New Mexico.

I heard about the Logan twister that destroyed dozens of homes that afternoon. And an hour or so after I arrived home, another tornado curled up from

Ray Sullivan ◆ Former publisher

Portales to Clovis, tearing earth and destroying a dairy and cattle, and ripping through homes, trailer parks and businesses along the south and east sides of Clovis.

It injured a dozen or more people, two of whom soon died.

For the newspaper staffs in Tucumcari, Portales and Clovis, disaster plans were quickly employed. In the latter two cities, stories, ads, photos and production plans were made by 9 p.m. — sometimes in the dark because of lost power.

Since Clovis and Portales had Saturday papers, we arranged to print those papers in Roswell. It meant computer wizard Paul Tiedemann drove a car full of servers and computers to Portales, where they had electricity, and hooked them up so Editor David Stevens’ page designers and the ad team could produce pages.

Today, Tiedemann’s recollection of that night is as terse, accurate and loaded with his dry humor as ever: “Everything worked, so that was good.”

We decided the pages had to be printed old school, in black and white, to avoid possible color problems due to differences in our equipment and Roswell’s. The electronic pages were copied on disks and driven to Roswell before dawn, printed and driven back that afternoon and delivered.

Tucumcari’s deadlines were not as immediate, but were still pressing.

The Daily Miracle, an oftuttered phrase about what producing a newspaper requires, was never truer than on March 23, 2007.

Residents read about the disaster in their Portales and Clovis papers that evening.

With power restored, the Clovis press and mail crews produced follow-up coverage that Sunday.

The efforts of our news staffs was but a mirror of our neighbors’.

Military, average citizens, public workers — all pitched in to clean up the tornadoes’ detritus between Quay, Curry and Roosevelt counties. No one waited for federal disaster crews to arrive.

By the time they did, the cleanup was well along.

Ray Sullivan is a retired Clovis Media Inc. publisher. Contact him at: rsullivan123147 @gmail.com

Response showed character of community T David

he tornado that struck the southeast corner of Clovis on March 23, 2007, marks a moment in time when the character of our community was demonstrated in many incredible ways.

The immediate response from public safety personnel and neighbors in the impacted area was focused on aiding those in need.

Every department in the city of Clovis was activated and the reaction to the tornado’s devastation quickly became the only thing happening in Clovis.

Within minutes, it became apparent that the community response to the tragedy would

Lansford ◆ Clovis mayor

require a well-coordinated effort.

Volunteers from all over the area, including personnel from Cannon Air Force Base, were standing ready to assist with rescue and cleanup efforts.

Food, equipment and other material resources where being offered and provided on a grand scale. The management challenges associated with aid and cleanup efforts were obvious. The appropriate allocation and deployment of resources for the people in the impacted area was the No. 1 priority.

Fortunately, the Curry County Fairgrounds provided an excellent staging area for a coordinated response. Public Works Director and City of Clovis Engineer Harry Wang was given the logistical task of organizing resources and matching those resources with the needs in the impacted area.

The Fairgrounds also became a location for human service agencies, organizations and churches to offer aid and assistance to those who were affected by the tornado.

Daily briefings were held to ensure that the response efforts were swift and comprehensive.

When the governor made a visit to survey the damage he brought with him a helicopter unit from the National Guard. Several local officials were able to view the impact area from the sky.

The viewing from the sky added to the realization that the tornado’s path and impact could have been much worse. The city of Clovis was spared a direct hit.

On a personal note, I remember the suffering and the hardships that were placed on the victims.

I remember the honesty and respect that those same victims showed to all those who worked the day-to-day relief effort.

I remember the enormous outpouring of community support and the rapid rate of recovery.

And lastly, I remember the community pride I felt as a result of our community’s incredible response.

David Lansford was Clovis’ mayor in 2007 and is mayor today. Contact him at: dlansford@cityofclovis.org

The Eastern New Mexico News

Page 8

Tornado was ‘the perfect disaster’

By Kevin Wilson MANAGING EDITOR kwilson@thenews.email

In the years that followed the tornado for Ken De los Santos, he got into the habit of calling the March 2007 twister “the perfect disaster” at emergency planning conferences.

He had little reason not to, given the circumstances. The tornado happened on a Friday night, and it wasn’t severe enough for some of the town to lose power or even notice. There were casualties, but far fewer than anybody would guess.

Schools were on spring break, so the damages could be fixed without impact on students.

By Saturday and Sunday, state and local officials had made visits. Early the next week, national organizations and the Federal Emergency Management Agency were there — and the community’s effort at cleanup happened so quickly the city’s emergency manager, “was afraid FEMA was going to come here and say, ‘What tornado?’”

That’s not to say everything was fixed immediately.

Many residents struggled for months to get back to some semblance of life.

Then-Clovis City Manager Joe Thomas just missed the storm himself. He went down to Logan with his wife earlier that day when he heard word of a tornado there, where the family had a second property. Around the time he arrived in Logan to see the property was fine, Thomas got a call about the tornado that hit Clovis.

Thomas made it back just in time for the evening press conference at which city officials said they wouldn’t know the full scale of damage until the sun came up.

Thomas drove around throughout the rest of the weekend to survey damage, and remembered when he got aboard a helicopter to survey damage and saw a

semi in the middle of an otherwise untouched wheat field. The biggest damage was near Yucca Middle School, as many houses surrounding the school became the recipients of wind-blown air conditioning units.

Thomas said he would never want to trivialize the suffering of anybody in the tornado, but remains relieved to this day the storm didn’t go another 40 more yards in the wrong direction — power company infrastructure and the armory to the east, and Clovis’ heaviest concentration of population to the north.

De los Santos’ lasting image was a dog sitting in front of what used to be the family home, but all that was left was the foundation and the porch.

“Some were completely devastated, and some just lost portions of roofs,” De los Santos said. “There were 500 homes and businesses affected by it.”

Many would be just fine; that’s what home insurance and liability insurance were for. But there were people who fell through the cracks, and the city found ways to help them.

In the week that followed, United Way of Eastern New Mexico Executive Director Erinn Burch said, a meeting was held to help average citizens be made whole again.

The meetings progressed, starting with about 50 people and ending with a focused committee of 10 called the Eastern New Mexico Disaster Recovery Council.

Burch said she learned that in the wake of disasters, every Christian denomination finds its own niche. One denomination canvassed neighborhoods, and identified 300 homes with problems that could use local assistance. Another provided money to hire a case manager for the effort.

The council had $108,000 in locally donated dollars to spend, said Burch, who served as treasurer because

Courtesy photos

Volunteers began to arrive at daybreak after Friday night's tornado.

Hundreds came from across the region to clear debris and help with repairs.

UWENM was the council’s fiscal agent. The council had to stretch those dollars out to 130-plus cases — made up of the people from those 300 cases that called for help.

The key was first finding out if other relief agencies could first do a job, and using local dollars only if every other option was exhausted.

“You replace a roof and then FEMA, which would have replaced the roof, doesn’t,” Burch said. “That family could have been moved further along (with the money spent on the roof).”

For many of those on the

lower end, Burch said, the problem was their modest home was either damaged beyond repair or they were below current building codes before they were damaged. When the utilities get cut in emergencies, Burch said, a house doesn’t get them back until it meets code.

“A lot of these places were 1939 bungalows, and they needed significant work just to get power back,” Burch said. “The city is rife with homes that don’t meet code.

It’s not a problem until something happens (to trigger an inspection).”

The council tried to push rental and utility assistance, replacement for damaged vehicles and furniture replacement to area churches when possible. The most unusual lifeline extended was when the council found a wheelchair donated to a Lubbock group and matched it to a resident whose previous wheelchair was damaged in the storm.

The money lasted about six to eight months, and De los Santos said the only regret was the council didn’t have more to give.

Though Clovis hasn’t had another event quite like the

tornado, the practices used then have paid dividends over the years.

Burch recalled a 2012 fire at the Clovis Apartments on Martin Luther King Drive that displaced 12 residents.

The mechanisms from the tornado were put in place and $30,000 was quickly raised. Nobody spent a night without a roof over their heads, and three months later everybody was back on their feet and paying rent on their own.

“Without the tornado,” Burch said, “that never happens.”

Storm video There are multiple videos from the 2007 tornadoes on YouTube.

Tornado on the way: ■ https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=QUQCr 4OmZWQ Damage: ■ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWpG3ltgnyA Reaction: ■ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_bjLxvCZ94 Gov. Richardson visits: ■ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy-4zajOTxM Rep. Tom Udall visits: ■ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3yEbCK4Tvs

Staff photo: Tony Bullocks

Yucca Junior High School sustained some of the heaviest damage, just as spring break was getting started.

Page 9

The Eastern New Mexico News

Courtesy photo

Andy and Connie Jackson stand next to a sign thanking the community for their support after their home was destroyed by the tornado.

Tornado first to hit Logan since ’60s

By Thomas Garcia STAFF WRITER tgarcia@qcsunonline.com

LOGAN — Andy Jackson was on the porch, calling his wife Connie to come look at the clouds.

That’s about the time — 10 years ago today — the tornado ripped the roof off of their trailer house.

Connie said just as she looked outside, the tornado struck and she was knocked down by the door slamming shut.

“I was raised in Texas, so as the winds gusted and the house shook I could hear my mom’s voice saying ‘Get in the bathroom,’ as I crawled in the hallway,” she said.

Connie said it was a violent and sudden event and the next thing she remembered was her husband digging her out of the debris.

“It may have been 10 years ago, but it is still a very vivid memory for me,” she said. “The noise bothered me more than anything. I still have a hard time going to the car wash and storms make me nervous.”

Thank goodness most residents in the village of Logan were working when the tornado struck at 3:20 p.m., said village Manager Larry Wallin.

About two dozen homes were destroyed, but most of the residents were not around and no lives were lost.

The National Weather Service in Albuquerque reported the tornado featured winds estimated between 90 and 95 mph, with spikes up to 105 mph.

NWS said the tornado followed a northeast path along Highway 54, then over the Canadian River into town.

A 12-block stretch of Logan was hit, and most of the motor and mobile homes in the Sunshine Trailer Park on Fourth Street were damaged or missing.

Residences on Vigil Street had damaged walls, roofs and debris scattered on their property.

The tornado moved north, damaging homes and buildings along Fourth Street and Third Street. Homes and businesses several blocks away from the tornado’s path were damaged by high winds, debris and hail.

On the day of the tornado, power outages, rapidly fading sunlight and heavy rains were among the problems that cleanup crews and first responders faced.

The cleanup effort continued for several months after the storm struck Logan with an estimated cost of $150,0000.

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Logan’s Angie Chavez examines the damage to her Volkswagen Beetle that was crushed by a trailer that was overturned during the tornado.

Officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency opened a temporary branch in Logan to assist residents with their claims from storm damage.

The village was authorized by

the New Mexico Environmental Department to open an Emergency Tornado Debris Disposal on 14 acres adjacent to Logan Landfill for all the debris from the storm. The pit could

hold 30,000 loose yards of debris, including the large debris from condemned homes.

NWS records show it was the first tornado to touch down in Logan since July 12, 1963.

Storm that destroyed dairy hard to forget

By Alisa Boswell MANAGING EDITOR aboswell@thenews.email

PORTALES — Mike Mitchell doesn’t like to dramatize the events of that night.

“I mostly try to forget it,” he said.

But it’s not easy to forget the most memorable tornado in more than 100 years.

Mitchell was co-owner and manager of Grande Vida Dairy on New Mexico 202 on the Roosevelt/Curry County line 10 years ago tonight.

“At the time, I was living in Portales, and we were in between shifts, and I drove back out to the dairy in the evening to work on some equipment,” he said.

“The clouds were really crazy that night. My daughter called and told me there was supposed to be a tornado in the area, so I wondered what I was going to do if one hit.”

Mitchell, who now manages a dairy outside Farwell, said he began to plan in his mind what he might do when

the electricity went out.

“It got really, really quiet.

Then it got really loud at the other end of the barn (where I was),” Mitchell said. “I had already planned it and went in the next room and got between the two large milk tanks. I was just thinking about a safe place to get at the moment. I wasn’t thinking about much else.”

Mitchell said the sound emanating around him was almost like the sound of air being sucked through a small hole — only five times louder.

“It was screaming really loud,” he said.

Mitchell said when the chaos was over, he emerged from the barn to find the dairy destroyed and about 75 cows dead, with hundreds critically injured and put down over the next few days.

“It was really dark; you could catch little flashes from lightning, and you could tell everything was destroyed,” he said, adding that the walls of the barn he was in had fallen in everywhere except where he was hiding.

Courtesy photo

Roosevelt County’s Grande Vida Dairy was out of business for about 40 days following the tornado, which killed hundreds of cows.

“It pretty much destroyed the barn. There wasn’t much we could do that night. It was really dark after that,” Mitchell said.

He said the next day, he and other dairy workers moved out the rest of their 2,000 dairy cows. The animals didn’t return until the

facility was rebuilt, about 40 days later.

“It kind of put you in shock afterwards, but you have to kind of roll up your sleeves and go to work. The community and all of my employees were awesome,” he said.

“I was really scared, but one of the main things I got

out of it is that people really pull together when there’s a disaster.”

Mitchell said community members brought trailers to help move the cows, and a local veterinarian volunteered to doctor the injured cows suffering from cuts. He said they managed to move

all the cows by the end of the day, so they could be milked.

“It was pretty awesome; I didn’t think it was possible,” he said. “People from communities all around came out to help, and that was pretty amazing. I guess you’re just not always alone like you think.”

The Eastern New Mexico News

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We asked area residents to tell us what happened to them the night of the big storms. Some accounts have been previously published:

In the closet, with two kids

S

Courtesy photo

Clovis Body Shop on South Prince Street sustained heavy damage, as did everything around it.

tephanie White was at her Clovis house in the 2800 block of Holmberg Drive with her two sons, Jadyn, 7, and Joe Kyle, 5, when the tornado hit.

She said she heard a loud locomotive sound and sat in the bottom of her coat closet with her children.

“When I heard the locomotive sound it was just panic and shock.

“I remember they had a fast-pitch softball tournament going on at the high school softball fields. I remember hearing the tornado sirens going off and could hear them screaming down at the games. I really didn’t pay much attention to the sirens because I thought surely if they were having games it wasn’t that serious.”

She said she sat in the closet with her children for “what seemed like forever. Getting two babies to sit in there in the dark was quite a chore.

“I remember getting really panicked and starting to freak out. My phone wouldn’t work. I could not get a hold of my mom and dad. So I called my in-laws at the time and my father-in-law came over and picked us up.

“As we were driving across town, the area where Yucca Middle School is, I just remember seeing sparks where the power lines were popping and blowing up. You could just see debris everywhere. I later learned that a lot of the air conditioner units from the school were found in people’s yards.”

In their own words Adelle Bryant: The tornado picked up the trampoline from the back yard, lifted it completely over the house without touching the roof and sent it to the house across the street east of us, taking out their mailbox.

Then it sent it to the house next to them north.

The trampoline was wrapped around the back end of their pickup as if molded by the hand of God. Meanwhile, on a bench at the north side of our house lay a squirt gun, one of those small, cheap lime-green ones. It was untouched and unmoved.

The only damage to our house was a single shingle missing from a corner of the roof.

Shiray Berry: I was home on spring break from New Mexico State University and my mom and I were making some sorority letter shirts in the kitchen.

No TV or radio on.

The animals started acting so strange, so we got up to look outside.

Then the lights went out and it felt like a train hit us.

We tried running to the bathroom and didn’t make it. We ended up riding it out in the hallway.

Craziest night of my life.

Starla Martin: I was getting very inebriated with an old friend. Too drunk to drive home, I called my mom (Adelle Bryant) to let her know I was staying the night.

When I finally drove home to North Oak the next morning, I was bawling. First thing I did was see my babies, and make sure they were OK. Not much damage, except to our poor trampoline wrapped around the neighbor’s pickup truck.

RIP trampoline. You were fun.

Bob Farkas: I was in my vehicle near the intersection of 21st and Sycamore streets.

I saw a couple of bright flashes in the sky, which I later learned were caused by transformers being pulled off of power poles.

The tornado passed a few hundred yards in front of my truck, and as it went by, the entire roof structure of the house on the southeast corner of the intersection lifted, flipped over, and landed in the street.

I never knew my truck would go that fast in reverse.

Jennifer Bussey: I was visiting my family in the Lubbock area. I didn't know that the tornado had hit until I saw it on the Lubbock news.

That night, I quickly drove back to Clovis to check my apartment to make sure it was still there.

It was.

Dina Trujillo Sellers: We were at Applebee’s for dinner. Worst evening of our life.

When they gave us the all clear to leave the restaurant, I remember driving down 21st Street and seeing debris everywhere.

We turned on Sycamore and then finally on to Fairmont Court to see people walking around what was left of our home with flashlights to make sure we were OK. The only thing I remember screaming was “My nursing books!” I was in my second semester of nursing school.

“I just pray we don’t ever have to go through something like that again.”

Mike Sandoval: I was chasing the storm from its origin. I’m an amateur storm chaser.

I remember being at Cortez Gas and the horror that crossed my mind as I knew it was going to hit Clovis.”

Christopher Lee Tucker: “Since I was on the highway by Muleshoe, I was on the phone with my family, who were in the bathtub with our pets.

We prayed together and it was an anxiety I will never forget.

Thankfully, we just lost power for about 36 hours.

Courtesy photo

Shiray Berry was with her mother in their home in the 2400 block of Louisiana Street in Clovis when the tornado hit. The home was a “total loss,” Berry said.

Cristin Stewart: I was working with a group of developmentally disabled men that night on Marvin Hass Street in Clovis. I was nine months pregnant with my son.

I had been watching the news and saw that there were nasty clouds over Portales, but thought nothing about Clovis.

I did open the doors at the house I was at so I could hear the alarms go off. Then I went to the other side of the house to get one of the gentlemen I worked with.

We no sooner got back to the main part of the house when the alarms went off. I rushed everyone into the big bathroom in the center of the house and we got down on

Courtesy photo

Cristin Stewart was nine months pregnant when the tornado struck. Her son Robert turns 10 next week. the floor.

I was on the phone with my husband, who was home in Portales, and my phone went dead. A minute later, the lights went out and a sound like a train came through the house.

I just knew my car would be gone and the house would have no windows.

After a few minutes and my ears popping I peeked out the door and it was calm. So I told everyone to stay in the bathroom until I could check the house.

It was a miracle everything was still solid.

I went outside and it looked like a war zone. No lights, only sirens.

I left my car there that night due to flooding and when we came to pick it up the next day I could see the tornado had come up Sycamore; right before it hit the house, it turned back toward Jonquil Park.

I knew then just how lucky we had been.

Exactly a week later, on Friday, March 30, I gave birth to my son, happy and healthy.

I know that night God was watching over me and the guys in my care.

The shop was flattened

J

im May was at his home on South Prince, sitting in his easy chair talking on the telephone with a friend.

“The lights went off and the phone went dead, so I got up and went to the door

to look outside,” he said.

“There was so much suction on the door I couldn’t open it. I could hear the noise, and the tornado broke out a couple of windows in the house and tore up my barbecue grill.

“When I did walk outside, my shop across the street was flattened. The tornado pulled up all the power lines and I didn’t have electricity or water for seven or eight days. The police shut down the road

so I had to be an outlaw to sneak in and out of my house.”

May said he started cleanup the next day, had a building up within a week, but his septic tank business wasn’t back in action for

almost two months.

“I don’t think you ever fully recover. It’s hard to get things back together like they used to be. It took two or three years to get things back into workable order.”

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The Eastern New Mexico News

It was like the windows were breathing

C

urtis Kennedy was working at Allsup’s on 700 S. Prince St. when the tornado struck.

“Some people came by and told us to get ready, a tornado was coming through town,” he said.

“We got everybody out of the store, locked the doors and then gathered in the back away from the windows. We heard the wind and then, suddenly, it got really quiet and the lights went out. We thought it was over so we went back out to the front.”

It wasn’t over.

“A few minutes later, I saw the glass windows suck in and pop back out, like they

were breathing,” Kennedy said.

“I thought they were going to burst. Then I saw the tornado go right past the store.”

As he watched, power lines across the street went down “like dominoes,” he said.

Newspaper racks outside the store were tossed about, violently.

“If they hadn’t been chained down they would have destroyed the cars parked in front of the building,” Kennedy said.

“It was scary. I’ve never seen anything like it. I never want to go through that again.”

Staff photo: Tony Bullocks

Hundreds of homes and business in southeast Clovis were destroyed by the storm. Neighbors said no one was injured when this mobile home on Hickory Street was leveled.

A different kind of strike

Duty called — non-stop, for two days

C

lovis Police Officer Daron Roach was among first responders to the

storm.

“There was debris everywhere, tree limbs and parts of houses,” he said. “I continued south to see how far the damage had gone and it was all along Highway 70.”

Roach said he was astounded

at the amount of damage a tornado could inflict so quickly. He said the entire police department worked non-stop, checking houses and digging through debris for the next two days.

“My first thought was, ‘Is my family OK?”’ Roach said. “After that, I have a duty to act as an officer, so the second-most important thing was to get down

A

bout 15 people huddled inside or near the locker room of Mainline Bowl on Mabry Drive as the tornado roared through.

The group included Steve Foisie, two other bowling alley employees, and mostly children who were there to bowl.

“The kids were crying,”

there to the affected area and help people with homes there.”

Roach said his family lived on the south side of town and he was not able to talk to them for six hours after the tornado hit.

“He said it was not until he went home the next day for a brief shower and change that he learned the tornado had hit five houses near his home.”

Foisie said.

Outside, Foisie said he heard a loud roar, and then silence.

Windows in the building burst and an RV slammed into the side of the bowling alley, but no one was hurt.

Owner Alice Wood spent the next morning sweeping pounds of paper and debris into a large trash can.

At first, everything seemed calm

R

honda Miller was feeding her two children and her niece at her home in Logan, when her sister called for a ride.

Miller said as she walked outside things seemed calm.

“They say you’re supposed to hear a train or see a funnel,” Miller said. “It was calm, quiet, no funnel — then the wind just exploded.”

Miller said her sister called and told her there was a tornado. She said she ran her son back into the house as her daughter got into the vehicle and her niece was standing in the driveway.

“I kept calling for my niece to come back to the house, but she was frozen,” Miller said.

Miller said she picked up her niece and brought her in the house just as a mattress flew by, followed by metal, wood and insulation.

“I told my daughter to get down, on the floorboard of the car,” Miller said. “I could hear my son and niece crying but found myself locked out of the house.”

Miller said the screen door handle had broken off from the outside. She said she ran around to the back door and got the children inside situated then went to the car to get her daughter.

“There was so much damage done around us,” Miller said.

“I keep thinking back and saw I did everything wrong. I should have gotten all the kids in at once, though it just didn’t work that way.”

Staff photo: Tony Bullocks

Louisiana Street was covered in debris, as were multiple other roads in the area

Road was full of couches, stoves

J

oe Griego was at home on Louisiana Street watching television when he heard about the tornado headed his way.

“I gathered up my family and we

jumped in the pickup truck and headed north, to my son-in-law's house. The tornado was right behind us.

“We came back that evening and

it looked a like a war zone. The patio was piled four feet high with debris.

“There were couches and stoves all over the road.”

‘We’re screaming at each other ’

P

ortales’ Elly Marez knew a storm was coming when she started home from Lubbock. She could see the dark clouds ahead well before the heavy rain and hail began that evening of March 23, 2007.

“My daughter was driving, and probably 10 minutes before we got to Farwell, she could not see the road anymore because of the rain and it was pitch black,”

Marez said.

“She pulled off to what she thought was the side of the road, and we sat there for a few minutes.”

The roaring storm seemed only to strengthen, and the four people crammed into her 2003 Dodge Neon were all terrified.

“We’re screaming at each other,” Marez said, “and then we felt the vehicle lift up off the ground and moved, probably, I

don’t know, 18 feet toward a field. I just knew we were going to be sucked up into it. I thought we were going to go up into the sky just like in the movies.”

Marez, her two daughters and a son-in-law fell instantly silent.

“Then, whatever it was, just set us back down — gentle, like a giant had picked us up and set us back down. I think we all peed our pants,” she said.

The Eastern New Mexico News

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From the archives of The Eastern New Mexico News

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The Eastern New Mexico News

From the archives of The Eastern New Mexico News

The Eastern New Mexico News

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From the archives of The Eastern New Mexico News

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The Eastern New Mexico News

Heleneta Blevins

‘Snap’ Cravy

Courtesy photo above, left photo by Tony Bullocks

Heleneta Blevins was famous for her cobblers, cakes and pies. She was still cooking for her family right up until the tornado destroyed her home and took her life.

Heleneta Blevins no stranger to storms Editor ’s note: Only two people have been killed by tornadoes in Clovis’ 110-year history. Both were 90 and in trailer homes when the storm hit, and both died from injuries days later. Their families and friends helped us put together these profiles.

BY THE STAFF OF THE NEWS

Tornadoes were always serious business for Heleneta Blevins.

Born in tornado alley — Eureka, Kansas, was the site of widespread tornado damage

just last summer — she grew up with a healthy respect for the twisters, said her daughter, Betty Denton.

“Where she used to live south of Clovis, she was always taking care of little kids,” Denton said.

“They had a funny little drill where every time there was a cloudy day, they’d go to the cellar. The kids always got cookies and Kool-Aid, so they loved it. She was definitely afraid of tornadoes.”

There was no cellar in the

trailer house where Blevins was living in her son’s back yard on South Prince Street the evening of March 23, 2007.

Jim Blevins said hail was falling so hard it burned his ears that night when he went to check on his mother, who had insisted on living alone, even at 90 years old.

Just as he reached her trailer, Jim Blevins said the storm went quiet. “I knew then it was bad,” he said.

Moments later he said he heard “hissing,” then an explo-

sion as he felt debris flying.

Jim Blevins said he woke up outside, confused and disoriented in a mud hole. At first he thought he was dead.

Heleneta Blevins was thrown into a field yards from her home and was critically injured. She was released from the Clovis hospital a few days later so she could be surrounded by loved ones as she passed.

They remembered her for a focus on family, for her cobblers, pineapple upside down

cake and coconut cream pie, and for her babysitting.

It’s estimated the woman known across Clovis as “Grandma Blevins” cared for more than 100 children in her lifetime.

Her obituary referenced an “awesome cook and babysitter,” who worked six years for New Mexico Boys Ranch.

It also hinted at her love of life and its adventures, reporting she died March 27, 2007, “from injuries sustained from riding a tornado.”

“Awesome cook and babysitter (died) riding a tornado.”

— Obituary

‘Snap’ Cravy still out and about at 90 years old

BY THE STAFF OF THE NEWS

Walter “Snap” Cravy was 90, still active, and even driving himself around town, his mind as sharp as ever.

He loved traveling to Branson, Missouri, and was planning another trip with his granddaughter Tilynn Pierce and other family members.

But his wife of almost 50 years, Betty, had died just two years earlier and he was falling sometimes and needing a walker to get about.

He stayed with a son in California for a while, then stayed with Tilynn in Clovis for awhile, but most family members were working all day and he didn’t like being alone.

Family friend Shirley Boothe offered the perfect solution. She was home a lot and had experience as a certified nurse’s assistant.

So for two or three months, Cravy spent much of his time at Boothe’s mobile home.

He was sitting in her living room when the tornado hit on March 23, 2007.

“I was standing in the living room, debating, ‘Well, should I leave?’” Boothe recalled.

Then she and Cravy saw the double windows on the trailer begin to open “like a zipper,” she said. “And that is all I remember

until I heard sirens and it was raining and the ambulance came.

I remember bits and pieces of that, and then they took me to Lubbock.”

Boothe suffered a broken foot, a gash in her head and more. She was hospitalized for three weeks.

Cravy was more seriously injured with a broken neck, sternum, thigh bone, arm and ribs. He died in a Lubbock hospital on April 12, 2007.

Ironically, Cravy’s home on Cravy Drive — named in his honor — in South Clovis was not damaged by the storm.

“He went to (Boothe’s house) because he didn’t like being alone after his wife died,” said Marie Cravy, Snap’s daughter-in-law.

“It was good for him to be there ... just not on that night.”

Pierce said her grandfather “always kind of clinged to me.”

They liked the same things, including the trips to Branson and camping.

He’d lived in the home on Cravy Drive since he purchased the land and moved in several houses before Tilynn was born, at least 50 years ago.

Everyone called him Snap, a nickname he received as a baby because of the way he snapped his eyes closed.

“He was a character,” Marie Cravy said. “He was a fun person to be around.”

“He was a character.”

— Marie Cravy

Courtesy photos

‘Snap’ Cravy, sitting with Shirley Boothe's dog Heidi, was planning a trip to Branson, Missouri, when the storm hit.

His granddaughter Tilynn Pierce, left, points to the area where rescue workers found Boothe, Pierce's mother-in-law.

Cravy was also buried under rubble nearby.

Heidi survived the storm.