Tornado Warning 1977 #1 Traditional Cache
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First of a series to commemorate the 30 year anniversary of the Monahans tornado.
Container is a well camouflaged coffee can
An adventure in "archaeological meteorology" where severe weather long ago still has its scars on the land.
It is Tuesday, April 19, 1977 at lunch time. Unknown to most residents, a supercell with mesocyclone rotation has formed a few miles southwest of town.
As the updraft region approaches I-20, residents cannot see the backsheared anvil or overshooting top about 60,000 feet overhead. They do not see the updraft tower striations.
A portion of the rain free base lowers, rotating furiously. Due to the low precipitation few residents notice anything amiss. Another well formed funnel cloud a few miles to the west captures the attention of those watching the sky.
With invisible swiftness, the rotating column of air reaches the ground just south of I-20 and west of Highway 18.
It crosses Highway 18, then I-20 and heavily damages several buildings as it cuts a swath through the residential part of town. Most people are at work or school as some buildings are flattened, others lose roofs.
Trees almost a century old are uprooted or snapped off.
The tornado varies in intensity between F-1 and F-3, skipping some homes and businesses entirely and flattening others.
The hospital is heavily damaged. The entire long block of Third Street between Gary and Ike is swept to bare concrete where houses once stood.
I had gone home that lunch period to send off some college paperwork, as I was a senior at Monahans High. A light hail was falling, about marble sized, and thinking nothing of it, I went in the house.
Suddenly, two panes of my bedroom window shattered. There was no noise. I went to the window to see what was going on, and the back yard just turned brown.
That is when the howling started, and the back fence disintegrated. That was when I figured standing next to the window was not the best plan around, so I ran for the hall closet and listened to the howling.
Something blew the door open and a tree came into the hallway.
I yanked the closet door closed and most of the contents of the upper shelf fell on me.
Then, suddenly it was quiet.
One of the objects I was under was the camera bag, and in it, an 8mm movie camera.
I grabbed the camera and from what was left of the back yard, and shot about 5 to 8 seconds of footage until the camera ran out of film, a huge churning column full of debris 3 or 4 blocks away that looked like dozens of pieces of houses in a mile high blender.
Over the next several days I helped clear an awful lot of debris, and made notes of where heavy and light damage occurred along the entire path.
Fast-forward thirty years. Most homes and businesses damaged or destroyed have been rebuilt. Thirty year old trees stand in yards where there was once total destruction.
Most were rebuilt. Some had inadequate insurance, and never recovered. Some of these remnants remain today as a silent testament to nature's fury.
This is near the point the tornado entered town.
80 feet west of this cache is a large concrete foundation where a business once stood, still surrounded by smaller debris not hauled off when its remains were demolished.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Pnpghf, abg gur gerr