Caught In The Path, A Tornado's Fury, A Community's Rebirth [Paperback]

Carolyn Glenn Brewer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1997

Before storm sirens, before the Weather Channel, before Doppler Radar, a tornado "dropped out of a troubled May sky and twisted its way into our lives forever." On the evening of May 20,1957 three communities south of Kansas City, Missouri were destroyed by a seventy-one mile, F-5 twister. This monstrous storm left in its path five hundred injured, forty-four dead and over a million dollars worth of property damage.

Nothing defines a community more than its reaction to disaster. Caught In The Path is a story of fear and courage, suffering and resiliency. The hardest hit area, four year old Ruskin Heights, was the first post-war tract housing development in the Kansas City area. Like so many of their generation, its residents, mostly first time home buyers in their twenties and thirties, came to Ruskin to raise their baby-boom families with the optimism of the fifties. When the tornado scattered their dreams along its path, they came back, and changed a housing development into a community.

Author Carolyn Glenn Brewer's family was among those caught off guard by the tornado. Most of the houses on her block were leveled to the foundation. She combines her story with extensive interviews from nearly one hundred survivors and period media coverage. The narrative flow of this book reads like fiction, but makes the tornado, and the summer that followed, pulse with reality.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...When tragedy strikes, we are all neighbors. Exceptionally well written and cogently presented, Caught in the Path is an insightful and informative social history that everyone can identify with. -- The Midwest Book Review

From the Back Cover

Ms. Brewer weaves a fascinating account of this terrible disaster as seen through the eyes of survivors, including herself, who lived the terrifying event. It should serve as a reminder that... this kind of tragedy could happen again. (Fred Ostby, Former Director, National Severe Storms Forecast Center)

Carolyn Glenn Brewer is a fine writer who captures the drama and excitement of a horrendous moment...the night the tornado swept across our area. (Walt Bodine, Talk Show Host KCUR Public Radio)

The Ruskin Heights tornado struck while many Americans were still caught up in a post-war euphoria. Carolyn Glenn Brewer succeeds in communicating the experiences of survivors, enabling the reader to sense the terror, grief and hope of those touched by the disaster. (Anne Chiarelli Jones, Director of Collections, Johnson County, Kansas Museum)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 173 pages
• Publisher: Prairie Fugue Books; 1st edition (April 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965577406
• ISBN-13: 978-0965577403
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #933,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Carolyn Glenn Brewer, writer, historian, teacher and lecturer, is also a child of the Ruskin Heights tornado. Her widely acclaimed book, Caught In The Path, a Tornado's Fury A Community's Rebirth, has been featured on local and national television and radio programs, and adapted into a one-act play. She has also written for JAM Magazine and is currently working on a book about the first Women's Jazz Festival.

When not writing Carolyn spends her time as director of instrumental music at St. Elizabeth's elementary and middle school in Kansas City. She also plays clarinet in the Medical Arts Symphony, Northwinds Symphonic Band, and the Heart Of America Chamber Players.

As empty-nesters, Carolyn and husband Tim enjoy traveling all over the country to visit their four children and three granddaughters while their golden retriever, Freddie, and cats, Ella and Gudren wait patiently at home.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The raw human side of a violent tornado, August 21, 2001

By 

Roger Edwards (Norman, OK United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Caught In The Path, A Tornado's Fury, A Community's Rebirth (Paperback)

Smudging our national fabric are stains of disaster like the one smeared across the southern suburbs of Kansas City one muggy night in 1957. Through her own experiences as a child survivor, and those of dozens of living witnesses, Brewer has compiled a rich and true tale of the impact, recovery, and lingering torment from a multiple-vortex, F5 tornado. Warnings weren't too accurate or timely then; the weather bulletin advised residents only of the threat of high winds and hail. When the vortex struck, 44 people died, over 500 others lay injured, and thousands of families' lives were torn loose from the security of bustling, post-war, Levittown-style suburbia. As the stories unfold, one can almost see the smoldering rubble, and smell the aroma of electrical ozone and shredded trees.

Concurrent parts of the survivors' inverviews are excerpted together in each chronological chapter, from the tornado's first sightings to recollection from the 1990s. The book could have used another diligent proofreader or two. Its organization is rather choppy; and there are too many misspellings. The research, however, was resoundingly thorough, rendering a richly endowed anthology of personal tales from a single evening of terror long ago.

Tornado survivors, disaster historians and Kansas City residents alike will appreciate Caught in the Path; however, its most needed audience may be severe weather aficionados: storm chasers, storm spotters and professional meteorologists. To them (and me, a former NSSFC forecaster), Brewer shows the side of severe weather we too often fail to appreciate when we research, forecast, or observe storms. Through these pages, the survivors of Kansas City's last violent tornado teach us lessons about what happens beneath those radar echoes and dark clouds. Their tales of survival show us why we do what we do -- to minimize such carnage and horror whenever the big one hits again, anywhere, anytime.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A roaring success!, December 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Caught In The Path, A Tornado's Fury, A Community's Rebirth (Paperback)

I came across this book on a visit to St. Louis and grabbed it. It may just be the best book ever written about a tornado--it's riveting start to finish and the spotlight is on people and their lives. It's a great movie in print with a terrific plot, memorable characters and a lot of heroism mixed in.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A time warp to my childhood, May 30, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Caught In The Path, A Tornado's Fury, A Community's Rebirth (Paperback)

Carolyn Brewer's book took me on a journey to my past, Her recounting of the Ruskin Heights tornado through interviews with survivors made those intense Summer evenings come rushing back like the storm winds themselves. No one who grew up in "Tornado Alley" could read this book and not be moved. I applaud her courage and that of the people who shared that night of terror with all of us.