KALAMAZOO COUNTY, Mich. — It was late afternoon on April 2, 1977 in Augusta, Michigan, a small town in Kalamazoo County, when the sky began to turn an ominous shade of pink-yellow.
Many knew it was the calm before the storm. But no one knew quite how disastrous that storm would be.
Now 47 years later, we remember how that day turned into not just one, but two historic Michigan weather events. It was the last "violent" tornadoes to touch down in the state. By the National Weather Service's standards, that's a tornado F-4 or greater.
A "supercell" thunderstorm produced two F-4 tornadoes, one of which slammed into Augusta. The other flattened 21 homes and 28 outbuildings as it moved near Bellevue to Eaton Rapids, the Weather Service says.
That same evening, smaller tornadoes also struck north of Bath in Clinton County and southeast of Dansville in Ingham County.
Wayne Turburg, the former Augusta village president, and his wife, had just dropped their daughter off at the Augusta Library when the storm began. On their way home, they saw the clouds closing in, so they turned around and went back to the library, Turburg told the Battle Creek Enquirer at the time. Turburg had to convince his wife to go into the library for safety.
After the storm cleared, they found the roof of the Augusta Lumber Company "sitting on the top of my car," Turburg said.
Art Cable was working at a wielding shop in August when he heard "a noise like releasing an air hose air," he told the Enquirer. He saw a house go straight up in the air and slam into the ground and recalls seeing a roof flipping in the wind "like a piece of paper."
Berle Finkey, another resident, was driving down Michigan Avenue in Galesburg when he saw the sky's color change. Then, he saw the funnel cloud.
"When I got to the top of the hill on Webster Street and looked over Augusta, everything was churning in the air—the tree branches, siding from buildings and boards—everything," he told the Enquirer.
"The tornado twisted houses into toothpicks," the Kalamazoo Gazette said at the time.
By the time the storms finished their path of destruction, officials discovered one person was killed and 50 were injured.
The last strong tornado to hit the state since that evening in 1977 was 45 years later. On Friday, May 20, 2022, two were killed and 44 were injured after an EF-3 tornado destroyed dozens of businesses and homes in Gaylord. Nearly two years later, the town is still picking up the pieces.
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