The president was dead.
Minutes after wire services transmitted a flash report on Franklin D. Roosevelt's death to newspapers and radio stations, massive tornadoes hopped and skipped through eastern Oklahoma, killing 86 people, injuring at least 690 and causing millions of dollars worth of property damage.
The greatest damage was at Antlers, where a tornado killed 63, and at Muskogee, where the death toll was 12, including three students at the Oklahoma School for the Blind. Four other eastern Oklahoma communities were hit by tornadoes spawned by the same system that day. Oklahoma City had been hit earlier that afternoon.
The storm struck on April 12, 1945, only 15 days before the third anniversary of a tornado that destroyed Pryor's business district, killing 77 and injuring 329.
Roosevelt, 63, had died of a cerebral hemorrhage at 3:35 p.m. while sitting in front of a fireplace in his "little White House" at Warm Springs, Ga.
Roosevelt, the only president ever elected to more than two terms, had begun his fourth term less than three months earlier. Muskogee's radio station announced the death but was knocked off the air before it could report details.
In addition to the deaths in Antlers and Muskogee, the storms caused four deaths in Oklahoma City, four in Sallisaw, three in Hulbert, one in Boggy and two in Red Oak, the next day's Tulsa World reported.
There were reports that the storm had hit other communities, but none was confirmed. The death toll was raised to 111 the next day when it also was reported that at least 25 had been killed as the storm system moved through Arkansas and Missouri.
The storm struck primarily in eastern Muskogee, where many students at the School for the Blind were injured. Damage to the state-owned school was estimated at more than $1 million.
Power to the city's water plant was knocked out, causing the city to operate on its reserve for more than 24 hours. The Antlers tornado struck the center of town, destroying about a third of the town of 3,000, leaving only one telephone functioning.
U.S. Rep. Paul Stewart, an Antlers resident, was home when the storm hit. He estimated damage at more than $3 million. Ambulances from many cities were sent to both Muskogee and Antlers. Tulsa sent police officers to Muskogee to help control looting.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol opened an emergency operations center in the gym of the Antlers high school. Power was knocked out to the water system, leaving the entire town without water.
The Antlers Funeral Home, which lost two of its three employees in the storm, was overwhelmed. The dead were taken to funeral homes in Atoka, Hugo, Durant, Idabel, Talihina and Paris, Texas, for embalming.
The bodies were returned a few days later to a temporary morgue in the high school basem*nt for relatives to identify. Heavy rain fell for several days after the tornadoes, causing flooding on the Arkansas, Verdigris and Neosho rivers, and closing highways in at least 14 places in eastern Oklahoma.
Webbers Falls and Salina were evacuated. The high water killed seven people in the Seminole-Wewoka area and one at Dewar. The water also washed out the roadbed under the Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroad tracks a mile south of Oktaha, causing a passenger train to plunge into swollen Elk Creek.
When engineer Tom Wilson and fireman J.K. Rosebury saw the washed-out track before the train reached the creek area, they set its brakes and jumped into the water. Swimming underwater, they were able to uncouple the locomotive to keep its weight from pulling the other cars into the water.
The locomotive sank rapidly, but all of the passengers in the passenger car and the train crew members in the baggage car were able to escape uninjured. The passengers were ferried across the swollen stream, and another train was sent from Muskogee to take them back to the city.
Like this column? Read all the columns in the Only in Oklahoma series from the Tulsa World Archive.
Only in Oklahoma is a series from the Tulsa World Archive that was written by former Tulsa World Managing Editor Gene Curtis during the Oklahoma Centennial in 2007. The columns told interesting stories from the history of the country’s 46th state. The Tulsa World Archive is home to more than 2.3 million stories, 1.5 million photographs and 55,000 videos. Tulsa World subscribers have full access to all the content in the archive. Not a subscriber? We have a digital subscription special offer of $1 for three months for a limited time at tulsaworld.com/subscribe.
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