Tornado Damage at the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory

At approximately 9:45PM on Monday June 8, 1953 a tornado swept through the southwestern section of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio. Several buildings were badly damaged, but there were no injuries to the approximately 100 people on duty at the time. Over the next half hour the tornado tore through several nearby neighborhoods before making its way to Downtown Cleveland and finally out over Lake Erie. Eight people were killed and over 200 injured. Fifty homes were destroyed and nearly 2000 damaged. Large areas of the city lost electrical power, and the roads were littered with debris for weeks. Several structures at NACA Lewis were damaged, but the Barrel Storage Building, the Trunnion Storage Building, and the Fabrication Shop received the most damage. The roofs were ripped off of the two former structures, while the windows and doors were blown out of the latter. The Research Equipment Building and wind tunnel drive motor building were also damaged. One staff member in the Barrel Storage Building managed to crawl into the safety of an office area. Six others in the Fabrication Shop sought shelter in the basement. The Lewis plant protection force set up emergency lighting to assess the damage and roped off the damaged areas. As a precaution they also sealed the fuel lines leading to several of the large test facilities. The NACA suffered $100,000 in damage as a result of the storm. This photograph was taken shortly after dawn the following morning.