Wilhelm column: Remembering the fatal twister of 1948

Many recall the “funnel cloud aloft” that ripped through the area in June of 1977, but fewer undoubtedly remember a storm that caused heavy damage nearly three decades earlier.

Monday will be the 70th anniversary of a storm that killed five people and cost millions of dollars in damage in Ohio.

The March 19, 1948, storm struck Fremont and Sandusky County early in the afternoon. A subhead on a local story in the Fremont News-Messenger the next day said, “Barns Leveled, Buildings Unroofed, Poles And Trees Fill Highways…”

Some of the most serious damage occurred at Slager Air Park off Oak Harbor north of the area that now is home to Potter Village Shopping Center.

According to the story, six airplanes were demolished, piled one on top of the other, with many others damaged. All of the wrecked planes belonged to Joe Slager, operator of the air park.

Paula Slager, Joe’s wife, was quoted as saying, “We were in the field among the planes when the storm broke. … It lasted only three or four minutes, but how anyone got away without being killed is a miracle. The air was filled with debris.”

Snow, rain or gloom of night might not stop the postman, but the storm had an impact on one rural mail carrier. He was blocked by a pole that fell across the road, so he turned around only to discover that a tree had come down behind him. “Finally, some farmers got out axes to chop the tree away.”

There were countless reports of damage to buildings, but I found the most interesting story to be one titled, “Big Gale Adds to Gypsy Woes.”

The story began, “Escorting of a band of over 100 motorized gypsies by Sheriff H.L. Myers and Deputy Paul Campbell through the tornado area at the height of its fury was one of the most dramatic stories of the storm.”

Three of the eighteen trailers being hauled in the caravan of “gypsies” were overturned by the winds, forcing the caravan to stop and right the trailers before moving on.

“Sheriff Myers was informed by one of the band who called himself ‘the chief’ that the group was on its way to Toledo to celebrate the death of their gypsy queen.”

Although he spoke freely to the sheriff, “the chief” pleaded with Myers not to alert Lucas County and Toledo authorities that they were coming.  “We get such bad publicity,” he said.

Roy Wilhelm started a 40-year career at The News-Messenger in 1965 as a reporter. Now retired, he writes a column for both The News-Messenger and News Herald.