Clarion-Ledger from Jackson, Mississippi • Page 1

fjue ifeifi0ii-Fij4giir II0ME Edition WEATHER Clearing and fooler through Friday. Lowest 44 to 52. High to 62. Mississippi's Leading Newspaper For More Than A Century Established 1837 AP Leased Wires-Wirephoto JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI. FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 16 VOL.

CXXIX NO. PRICE 5 Kay ToironsKdl IS (Sin As Candlestick Lies in Ruin By WALLACE DABBS Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer Walking down Cooper Hoad west towards Candlestick Shopping Center was like looking at a movie of the ruins of Borlin following the Second World War. Destruction was everywhere. I had just turned off Terry Road after fighting a line of traffic backed bumper to bumper. A policeman at the Cooper-Road-Terry intersection waved me through.

I drove down Cooper a 1 1 Hinds, Ronkln end Scott counties were still counting their deaths in the Thursday afternoon tornado as this abbreviated Clarion-Ledger went to press Friday morning, but the expectations were that the total would pass 60. Twelve of these were in Jackson, where the Candlestick Park shopping center was levelled and over 100 persons were in jured. At least 22 persons were killed and more than 200 were injured here Thursday when a killer tornado struck in southwest Jackson and bounced across the river into the Rankin industrial area. Candlestick shopping center in the populous southwest Jackson area was leveled by the twister which moved from the west about 4:30 p.m. along with a driving rain.

AREA JAMMED Ambulances emergency vehicles streamed Into the areas far into the hight. The traffic jams created by sightseers were intensified by the afternoon traffic. Downtown buildings were without lights and many business closed early. Workers and shoppers filled the rain swept streets. The twister, which swooped from the black, churning olouds, was spotted by thousands of persons.

In downtown Jackson the larger tornado was seen to be followed by a smaller as the twin twisters moved into Rankin county. EYE-WITNESS Mrs. Clayborne Stricklin of 3332 Charleston saw the tornado, and heared it coming. "It sounded like about a thousand jets," she reported. "My husband said lie against the wall." Mr.

Stricklin had been in three tornados before, when he lived in Yazoo City. "Objects were flying around, trees and things blown down." Mrs. Strickland could see no houses damaged from where sha lives, but her house and yard were "just covered with stuff-t pieces of tin and sticks and splinters things like that." "I heard a roaring," she described it. "I went to the living room window. There was buzzing and humming." HEADS TOWARD HOUSE She said she "saw the whirl coming in a path right straight toward my house.

I watched until I realized what it was." tims of the worst storm to hit Jackson within the memory of Jacksonians. Clarion-Ledger Chief Photographer was on the scene shortly after the blow shooing pictures. Hospitals Go Into Action Mrs. Stricklin, who was then president of the VFW auxiliary, went to Vicksburg to set up a canteen immediately after the 195J tornado. "This is nothing b'ke that," she said.

"This is the first one I've ever been in, and I never want to be in another," she admitted. One witness said "It looked like there was a fireball in tha tornado as it twisted toward the Pearl In Rankin, the twister hit the Knox Glass and Continental Can complexes. It skipped into the Air National Guard area where it damaged a building. A witness at the guard said the roof of one of the building! was damaged and bricks were torn from the side. At least one of the aircraft was damaged by the winds.

Damage at Knox was not too extensive, and was confined primarily to one of the plant building. Jackson Tile was flattened by the twister. Several railroad Ctcars were overturned near the plant. but they were eut up pretty bad." The only way across the stream, which had been swollen to abnormal size from the torrent of rain which accompanied te storm, was across a 24-inch water main. Walking across it was impossible.

We shimmied across, with cameras hanging from our necks. FIRST LOOK Across a muddy field, the highway led to our first look at Candlestick. It looked like somebody had dropped a bomb on it. Sirens screamed. People were digging around the rubbish with their bare hands looking for more victims.

Whitefaced rescue workers scrambled about. More sirens screamed. Workers from Mississippi Power and Light were busy putting up portable lights. Their beams cut a weird glare across the haundreds of men who were in the middle of the wreckage searching and looking and talking Trucks with steel cables were being used to pull large portions of walls. "This is the worst thing I have ever seen," City Commissioner Derwood Boyles said.

Clark Horton, the other commissioner, echoed that statement. ROPE STRUNG A rope had been strung around the shopping center to block off the area from those who had come to view the wreckage. Cars lined the streets as worried fathers, mothers, and relatives sought to get to the damaged area. "My children are at home with the maid," one woman sob-bingly told a policeman who was directing traffic. sorry madam.

But we were told not to let anyone through here." "I've got to get in," she kept crying. More sirens screamed past a mountain of traffic National guardsmen Volunteer civil defense workers firemen anyone who could help. Most, the living that is, told almost the same story as 17-year-old Larry Swales of 1510 two blocks where another policeman stood. I could see a large pine tree lying across the road about 10 yards behind him. Power lines were down.

WALKS TO SCENE "This Is far as you can go," the policeman said. "Can I walk to Candlestick?" I asked. "I guess so," he replied, watch those fallen wires." Taking a camera, I started towards the shopping center which was located about one mile away. People were out in their yards, looking dazed. Cars were pushed off the road.

One was overturned in a yard. The driver was inside it when the tornado struck. "I was just driving down the Jim Ward of 3105 Meadow Forest said. "That thing just picked me up." He pointed to his car. It was upside down in the yard.

"You know what," Ward said as he fingered a makeshift bandage around his head which covered some small outs. "No, What?" Is asked. SAVED BY BELT "If I had not had my safety belt on, I probably would have tteen killed!" The wrecked auto backed up Ms statement. Another car, a Ford, was ting just off the road. A fallen tree lay across it.

Another sat In the middle of the road. A giant oak had smashed into its lide. Roofs of houses were lifted rff. One woman went about her beauty shop picking up odds and inds. The only thing left standing in her shop were hair dryers.

"We heard it coming and ran. We got out of here just as fast as we could and then it hit. It was all over a second." Further on down the road; it was the same way. People just standing around. There was lothing they could do.

The phones were dead. There was no power. They were all looking on down the road towards Candlestick. "That's where it's bad," they kept telling me. POWER LINES DOWN The walking was tricky.

Pow-ir lines lay across the road and In yards. "They was supposed to be dead," one youth told me. CANDLESTICK IN RUINS This photo of the rubbish shows a portion of Candlestick Shopping Center shortly after it was bit by a tornado. Workers dug through the ruins seeking vie- Known Dead Joe Bullock, former AM Board director and candidate for Congress, was killed when his car was struck on the highway near Forkville. Baldwin Funeral Home E.

C. Bishop of Rankin County; Charles A. Deason of Jackson; and one unidentified from Flow-wood. Wright and Ferguson Funeral Home six bodies, all unidentified. Peoples Funeral Home Julia Anne Jones of 3833 Booker T.

Washington, killed at Candlestick; Archie Bowen, Lewis Mosley, Charles Carpenter and son, David. Hinds General Hospital Lewis Mosley of Clinton, a teacher at Oak Forest School; Mrs. R. T. Bowen and Charles Bowen, who lived near the.WLBT tower, were killed at their house; Mrs.

C. D. Parke. Theodore Gaetz, 73, a druggest, was killed in the drugstore at Candlestick Park. Others were E.

B. Bishop, Archie Bowen, Luther Ray Boyd, J. C. Calloway, Larry Clifton Burk, Maggie Jean Chambers of Morton, Frank Kincaid of Morton, and Rev. Marvin Pruitt, wife, three children and mother-in-law, Mrs.

Alford of Crystal Springs. come. Blood donors cars were volunteered, people with an extra room to spare called, and boys who were willing to clear debris showed up. Families and extra nurses were channeled into the cafe-continued on back page) Just across the river in Rankin, a train was overturned with five or six freight cars. FIVE KNOWN DEAD Rankin County Sheriff Red Shivers said at least five wera known dead in Rankin.

No identification was immediately avail able. The dead, he said, included one boy who was riding a bicycla when the twister hit, a man in a truck and three men in the in By JEAN CULBERTSON Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer In the aftermath of the tornado, Mississippi Baptist Hospital was as flooded with extra help as it was with victims. Putting its disaster plan immediately into effect, the hospital marshalled for the emergency in crisp dispatch. Never was there any time when a victim had to wait for care. People were the main problem.

The driveways, stairs, passages kept clogging with family looking for somebody who didn't come home Thursday night. MOST CALM Most were calm, if red-eyed. A few were hysterical. So often the answer wasn't dustrial area. STORM DAMAGE CAUSES SHORT EDITION TODAY This edition of The Clarion-Ledger is reduced in size, copy and completeness because of a peculiar accident of the storm which damaged the underground power cables for downtown Jackson, and held up production of the paper.

Early editions were printed in Brandon by the Rankin County News, Editor-Publisher Thomas Alewine and staff, coming to the rescue in the emergency. Known Injured Suber," Larry Temple, Cynthia Tyson, G. W. Tyson, Mr. and Mrs.

Chester Warren, James satisfactory "no one by that name we don't have him listed not on the records, yet. Shirt-sleeved doctors, stethe-scooes dangling, strode from Jackson hospital put their emergency plans into effect aa soon as the injured began to arrive. More than 120 persons were treated at Baptist Hospital ia southwest Jackson where dozens were treated. The VA hospital treated six persons and released five of them. A trailer house was demolished on Fannin Road south of Pelahatchie Creek, It was not known if residents were at home.

General Cable Corp. and Marquette Cement Co. in Brandon were blacked out by power failure, However, neither was hit by the tornado. POWER FAILURE Mississippi Power Light Company president Baxter Wilson issued the following statement on tornado damage to electrla facilities: "Main damage to facilities in the Jackson area centered in the Southwest Jackson Substation and to the east of Jackson where two transmission lines supplying the downtown area were damaged severely with several structures twisted off at the ground. The Southwest Jackson Substation was destroyed and numerous other transmission line structures were broken off and are on the ground.

"Traffic congestion delayed crews in reaching affected areas. "In addition to any customers in the Jackson area, customers in areas south of Winona, at Kosciusko, Carthage, Pels hatchie, and Morton were without electric service. "West Jackson, South Jackson and North Jackson substations have normal service. No damage was suffered by the Rex Brown BINDS GENERAL Hinds General victims received: Louis Atkins, S. E.

Alexander, Betty Alexander (released), Stanley Bell, Mrs. Lula Boyd, Luther Boyd, Luther Bird, Mrs. Jimmy Bowen Martha Jo Bryan, Mrs. G. T.

Bryan, Mrs. Linda Burton (released) David Bryan (released), Timothy Carpenter, Allen Russell Calloway, Mary Calloway, K. C. Carpenter, Edmond Cum-mings, Earl Cummings Larry Whitehead, Dudley Wills, Lydia Gay Wilson, Will Wilhoten. In surgery at Hinds General: Ronald T.

Hannas, Jerry Puckett, Richard Everett, Mrs. Charles Frenny, Cynthia Tyson, Terry Temple, Mrs. Downes. MISSISSIPPI BAPTIST Received in emergency at Mississippi Baptist Hospital: Mrs. Aaron, R.

E. Allen, Miss Miles Woody Drive. Larry was working at his job at the Liberty Cash supermarket when it Seven Of Klan Indicted one room to another, working bard. Everybody hurried, but there was grim purpose behind every move. Ambulances unloaded, brushed off the glass splinters and S.

Dorman (released) and wife WASHINGTON (AP) Seven Southerners identified as Ku power plant, and it is operating normally. "All crews, servicemen and other emergency per sonnel in the Jackson area are on the job and will continui te work throughout the night and until service is restored. Additional crews are being moved into affected areas from other parts ot slammed the blood spattered stretchers into the backend and had the motor started before the doors were shut. DIRECT TRAFFIC Out on North State Street, four civilian-clothed somebodies directed the traffic into the emergency room entrance and kept the rest moving out of the way. Some victims came in private cars, one with all the glass shattered.

People milled around on the sidewlak, across the street at the filling station. One death at first was attributed to the tornado. It turned "You sure?" I asked. After giving it a momenf's thought, he replied. "No.

I'm not." I didn't find out either. One man saw it coming. "I law it hit around the shopping center and I ran back into the house yelling my head off for my family to get out. But it seemed to bounce up and went right over us. Thank God it did." Debris littered the I.

Giant trees were uprooted, their massive roots showing the moot evidence of the force of the blow. Sheets of tin, and wooden planks were scattered in limbs. On down the road, it was the same scene. A crowd had gathered to stand on the east side of a bridge which once spanned a large drainage ditch. The tornado had ripped it to piece.

Two cars were down in the water. Both were mangled. "They pulled a man and worn a out of that a bystander laid. "No. They weren't dead struck.

"Somebody came in and told us that a tornado was coming," the lean youngster said. "We told everybody to lie on the floor and then it hit. It caused a vacuum and it made my ears hurt. "It sounded like a bomb when It hit. People in the store were crying.

Children were screaming. It was something else. "After it was over, we went outside. I could not believe it. running everywhere.

We pulled one man out of the drug store. I know he was dead. CAR OVERTURNED "We found a little girl in a car upside down. We got her out. She was still alive but she seemed badly hurt." Larry suffered a few minor cuts.

Most weren't as lucky. One distinguished 1 1 1 1 stood looking at the wreckage. "Were you here when it hit?" (Continued en back page) Klux Klan officers were indicted Thursday on charges of contempt of Congress because they did not submit Klan records subpoenaed by a House committee. The seven, Including Robert M. Shelton, imperial wizard of the United Klans of America, are expected to be arraigned soon.

Each is charged on one count of contempt and, if convicted, would be subject to a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a $1,000 fine. The indictments trace to a recently concluded Investigation by the House Committee on Un- Baecher, Mrs. Dot Baecher, J. E. Baines, C.

J. Bates, Jo Ann Bcdgood, Robert H. Bishop, David Blake, Frank Blake, Bruce Bond, Burell Bond, James Box, Nancy Brister, (released Nathaniel Brown, (released), John Craft, Mrs. Arthur Davis (released), Carl Different. Grady Edwards, Mrs.

T. C. Essary, E. C. Flannagan (released), C.

R. Fratts, Bill Fratz, Herschel Gray (released), Jessie Griffin (released), Griffin or Griffin (released), Jerry Griffn, Virginia Griffin, Mrs. Harrison, Bill Harvey, C. H. Hawkins (released), Henry Hibbler (released), Roy Holmes (released), R.

G. Howell, Charles Huhn (released), David Johnson, Ssm King, Rob-(Continued oa back page) Judy. Mr. and Mrs. Earl Downes, Joey Downes, Glen Dowe, Richard Evans, Tom or T.

C. Ess-ary, Mrs. Ted Evans, Doris Freeny, Juanita Gibson, Mrs. Carrie Lee Grantham, Mrs. Ellis Hall, John Keith, Charles Hubbard, Rer.

John Heath, Harry Llttlefield, Freddy Latham, Mrs. Ruth Latrell, Freddy Lot-esford, Velma Mason, Wes Mc-Annelle Ricky Moore, Mrs. Garvin Moore, Terry Moore, Mickey Mobley, Mrs. Tom Mangum Mrs. Cora Oswald, Mrs.

Audrey Phillips, Carmen Patterson, Mrs. J. G. Patterson. Pant Pace, Jerry Puckett, Mrs.

Hoy ace, Ronnie Quarles, Mrs. Mattie Ruttrell, Lyda Kay Rankin, Curtis Sanders, Doris Sandere, Brenda tha system." Mrs. Tom Bryon and her son, David, were tn the parsonage of the Woodville Heights Baptist Church which is next to the church. They were blown out of the house into the parking lot. Tha house which was built on a slab was blown away and even tile from floor was ripped from the slab.

Mrs. Bryon was hospitalized, her son was released. There had been so much looting on autos that police and boy scouts collected keys and brought them to hospitals. The moving of patients" from hospital to university and Baptist caused some concern among families. It was a long day for most of them.

Mrs. James Quinn, of 3222 Lakewood was to the Libert (Continued on back page) out that an ambulance attendant had suffered a heart attack on the way. He wasn't driving at the time. Meanwhile, the switchboard American Acitivites during which the seven did not produce subpoenaed Klan records. Some declined to produca them, ath- was flooded.

Nurses who hadn't worked In 20 years offered to ri laid they had none..