The 1965 Palm Sunday Tornadoes in Indiana

by Arcadia Publishing

Overview

Author Janis Thornton reveals the stories of a day in Indiana like no other.

Palm Sunday 1965 started as the nicest day of the year, the kind of weather that encouraged Hoosiers to get out in the sun, fire up the grill, hit the golf course, or roll down their car windows and take a leisurely drive. That evening, however, throughout northern and central Indiana, the sky turned an ominous black, and storms moved in, quickly manifesting as Indiana's worst tornado outbreak. Within three hours, twisters, some a half-mile wide, ripped through seventeen counties, devastating communities and leaving death and destruction in their wake. When the tornadoes were finished with Indiana, 137 people were dead, hundreds were injured, and thousands more were forever changed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467149976
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	05/02/2022
Series:	Disaster
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	1,070,924
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Janis Thornton is an award-winning Hoosier author of history, mystery and true crime. Her works include three pictorial-history books in the Images of America series for Arcadia Publishing, two cozy mystery novels in the Elwood Confidential series and true crime books No Place Like Murder and Too Good a Girl. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Speed City Sisters in Crime, the Author's Guild, Women Fiction Writers Association and the Indiana Writers Center. This is her first book for The History Press. Visit her at www.janis-thornton.com.

Table of Contents

Preface 7

Acknowledgements 9

Introduction: A Day in Indiana Like No Other 11

Part I Northern Indiana Storm Line

LaPorte and Starke Counties 17

St. Joseph and Marshall Counties 22

Elkhart County 32

LaGrange County 52

Part II Central Indiana Storm Line 1

Tippecanoe and Clinton Counties 69

Howard County 77

Grant County 109

Blackford and Wells Counties 119

Adams County 124

Part III Central Indiana Storm Line 2

Montgomery and Boone Counties 139

Hamilton County 153

Part IV Watches, Warnings and Lessons Learned 165

Advancements in Weather Forecasting 166

Prepare and Rehearse 168

Appendix: Indiana's Worst Tornadoes 171

Bibliography 173

About the Author 175