The Pensacola News from Pensacola, Florida • 1

NEWS-JOURNAL PHONE All Departments, HE 3-0041 CLASSIFIED HOURS Daily 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday 8:30 a.m.

to 12 Noon Sunday 4 to 6 p.m. FORECAST Freeze warning with low tonight of 28-31. High Sunday 4044. Small craft warn-ings displayed with westerly winds 20-30 knots. THE PEN A NEWS SEVENTIETH YEAR-NO.

267 12 PAGES STREET SALE PRICE 5 CENTS PENSACOLA, FLORIDA, SATURDAY AFTERNOON, JAN. 6, 1962 7 SACOL 1mm islhan Yankee Stuii Here Snow Man! (And Freeze) Crestview Strewn With Debris As Citizens Dig Out 4 It, may not have been a White Christmas but the Pensacola area reported snow flurries Jan. 6 today. Bill Arnold at Gonzalez reported flurries at his home shortly before noon and Mrs. Rudy Kostclecky at the state line on Highway 90 west also reported flurries at her home.

Mrs. H. B. Lister at Ensley also reported snow at her home on Chcmstrand Road. The weatherman said, "It's possible." He reported that the temperature in downtown Pensacola had dropped to just below 40 by 11 a.m.

as a cold front moved in from the west. Temperature at Mobile at 11 a.m. was 35 and snow was reported falling at that time at Meridian and Jackson, and at Monroe, La. The weather bureau warned of a freeze tonight with a predicted low of 28-31 degrees. Small craft warnings had been hoisted for winds of 20-30 knots.

the ground again, picked up and hurled down again. It's something I'll never forget." Whitehurst said he found his son safe with about 20 other Scouts in a home which he said was almost directly in the path of the tornado. "Somehow, the funnel skipped that house," he said. Mr. and Mrs.

Wilmer Dennis, teachers at Crestview High School, were visiting friends when the storm hit. They rushed to their home at 758 9th St. and arrived just as the four-room unit burst into flames. "The roof was gone almost immediately," Dennis said. "Everything else was also burned up." Carl Barley, assistant to the superintendent of public instruction in Okaloosa County, also lost him home to fire.

He and (Turn to SCENE Page 3) mouth in and out the heart of their city can tell you what they thought at the moment. They saw sights they'll never forget. Crestview's mayor, George Whitehurst, lives on the edge of the city. He was among the first to see the storm approaching. "I began shouting for my kids," he said.

"Then I remem- More Tornado Pictures, Page 7 bered my son had headed for a Boy Scout meeting about five minutes before. As the funnel drew near I saw it hop-skipping up and down as it bore down on me. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. I saw garbage cans, small objects, refuse; paper and large pieces of boards and roofing materials rise rapidly in the air.

Then they'd be slammed to By GAYLE NORTON News Start Writer CRESTVIEW This proud, normally quiet rural community looked today like a gigantic garbage dump. Stunned citizens poked through piles of twisted junk, searching hopefully for keepsakes and personal treasures which seemed to be more important to them at the moment than the fact that many of them had no home at all. Crestview is a mess. It's spattered with car tops, refrigerator doors, twisted trees, ground glass, splintered lumber and mud. Beautiful homes lay flattened.

Shiny bits of shattered trailer homes sparkleJrom the limbs and branches of ragged trees like grotesque 'Christmas ornaments. Few Crestview residents know how complete the destruction was. But each one who saw the black funnel dip its hungry More Twisters Strike 'WW eairdh) TV ll'tt I Dabris Cresffcriew Ail Si 'sa Inside News 1 Dead, 19 Hurt As Funnel Rakes With Liberty Justice for All Okaloosa City HARLING 2 News political writer Maurice Harling concludes his "Know Your Government" series with a survey of Florida's court system 2 Scandal rocks American Stock Exchange 12 4 NEWS INDEX CRESTVIEW One person a six-months-old child killed in the arms of her grandmother was known dead and 19 others were treated for injuries after a twister swooped out of a squall line late yesterday afternoon and hop-scotched its way through the northwest section of this city of 7,500. National guardsmen, law enforcement officers and volunteer rescue workers began at dawn this morning rechecking the debris of some 75 demolished and 150 to 200 damaged homes and business buildings for other possible victims. An initial search of the three-mile long.

Amusements 7 Obituaries Comics 6 Sports Crossword 6 Jumble 3 5 6 7 3 4 Television 4 Weather wide storm-ravaged area during the night apparently Drew Pearson had accounted for all persons residing in the storm- Editorials RAMON THIGPEN'S BOAT TOSSED 40 FEET BY CRESTVIEW TWISTER all that's needed is wate lands in dry swimming pool cut section. The dead child was Donna John Tornado ar Started mmmm Area Gets Its Share Hot and Cold Air Collide: Tornado 4 ') ft son, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Johnson. The child was reported seated in her grandmother's lap when struck in the head by a piece of debris.

The grandmother, Mrs. Dutchie Elmore, was one of those injured. The Weather Bureau said a series of squall lines blowing across the lower half of the Gulf Coast states spawned the tornadoes which pounded Crestview, Destin and also hit Paxton, and Glenwood, Ala. At least five small tornadoes lashed sections of southeast and central Georgia early today causing considerable property damage. The twisters, generated in a severe weather front that swept across the southeast during the night, hit near Quitman, Baxley, Alma and Jeffersonville.

There were no human injuries but several head of livestock Turn to RESCUERS Page 3) FLAMES LEAP FROM TORNADO-SPAWNED FIRE AT CRESTVffiW Wilmer Dennis' residence destroyed the funnel which ripped through the Panhandle. True-to-form, the twister was preceded and followed by downpours of rain and lightning with frequency and great intensity. The English word tornado, which describes its spiral motion, comes from the Latin word "tornare" which means "to turn." Meteorologists say this so-called "turning" produces the "most violent storm nature manufactures." The funnel, they say, moves around a vertical or inclined axis, averaging about 250 yards across. The funnel's lower part, they point out, is often characterized by a narrow pendant cloud extending from a cloud base nearly to the ground. Over 80 per cent of the recorded tornadoes have occurred between noon and 9 p.m.

Friday's was true to this, striking at 4:10 p.m. Damage, meteorologists say, (Turn to HOT-Page 3) By EMORY LAVENDER Florida has an average of five tornadoes each year. The Panhandle gets its share of these. Yesterday's damaging twister at Crestview and Destin was 1962's first. Meteorologist Joe Pope said moistened hot air raising from the surface and dry cold air falling from the atmosphere caused the storm.

Dry cold air, he said, blew eastward over the Rocky Mountains and met up with moistened hot air blowing off the Gulf of Mexico. In collision, he said, the two motions produced a funnel snapped form near the center of a whirl, which bore downward, twisting and whirling. Eye witnesses saw all this happen Friday. Their stories were all the same: "I saw two clouds come together then something bad happened." The clouds, meteorologists say, rolled about each other, setting up a whirl, producing Dancing Around' By PERCY HAMILTON State Editor "I saw television antennas start bending, then they doubled over. "My car parked out front started dancing around." That was Lenn Dennis and other Crestview residents' rather awesome introduction to the tornado that bounced and skipped across northwest Crestview late Friday afternoon.

Dennis, an Eglin Air Force Base contractor employe, was looking out of his apartment at Helton Motel on West U.S. 90 squarely in the path where the tornado funnel first swooped down. The motel was badly damaged. Cars parked out front were battered by flying debris and from being banged together. A wild tangle of uprooted trees and shrubbery, downed power lines and wreckage of houses outlined the irregular swath about 100 yards wide and three miles long the storm cut across Crestview to the northeast before it picked up at Sikes Airport on North State Road 85.

The tornado shattered several business buildings as it crossed U.S. 90. It impaled thousands of vari-colored papers from the firms files on twigs of trees in a small wooded triangle on North Lloyd Street, giving them a bizarre Christmas decoration effect. Dennis was more disturbed by the antics of several thousand (Turn to CAR Page 3) Dead, Injured CRESTVIEW-IIere is the list of killed and injured in the Crestview tornado: Killed: Donna Joyce Johnson, six-month-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs.

Kenneth Johnson, 761 Ninth St. Admitted to Okaloosa Memorial Hospital: erations. Mr. and Mrs. Charles A.

Kee, 215 Third treated for lac-R Brown, address unavailable, treated for laceration of hand Durell W. Lee, 302 Second admitted for observation. Treated at Okaloosa Memorial and released: Mr. and Mrs. H.

B. Lawhon, 912 Ferdon Blvd. Glenn Lowe, 901 Alabama Ave. Mrs. H.

D. Elmore, 1278 N. Main St. Mrs Boone Gordon, U.S. 85 North.

Mrs. Ferris Youman 632 S. Wilson. Herman O. Gray, 621 E.

8th. Carol Welch, address unavailable. Bailey Thorne, address unavailable. Sylvia Entrikin, address unavailable. Betty Curenton, address unavailable.

Judy Fleming, address unavailable. Bervice Kennedy, address unavailable. Kitty Davis, address unavailable. Admitted to Baptist Hospital in Pensacola: Bill Jalbert, 15, Youngblood Trailer Court, Seventh Street. 1 I Businesses Hit Here's Rundown On Big Damage CRESTVIEW Here is a rundown on the principal damage in the Crestview business district: Reynolds Pontiac and Buick owned by W.

G. Reynolds. Showroom and two auxiliary buildings and several automobiles destroyed. Estimate of loss, reported "at least" $200,000. Crestview Jitney Jungle, more than $9,000 lost in frozen meats and produce stored in two coolers which defrosted during power failure.

An additional $10,000 lost in ruined merchandise, shattered windows and interior damage and items destroyed in redemption center, according to owner Ray Hartzog. Martin Auto Supply House, owner Carlden Martin of Atmore, estimated his loss between $30,000 and $50,000. Hilton's All-Glass Restaurant. Owner Aubrey Hilton said his damage would amount to $15,000 to $20,000. Trail Restaurant and Lounge.

Damage inside and out estimated by owner, operator Milan Smith at $15,000. Okaloosa County Repair Shops, Considerable damage reported but no estimates available this morning. TORNADO OPENS WALL TO RESIDENCE IN CRESTVIEW twister streaked through living room.