Early morning storm blows through Fleming County

Kentucky weather can be quite unpredictable and damaging windstorms can take place just about any time of the year, but thunderstorms and tornado watches take place most often in the spring months.

It was in May of 1925 when Fleming County experienced what was noted at that time, as the worst storm on record.

According to old newspaper accounts, on Sunday morning just before 8 a.m. May 28, a heavy black, angry-looking cloud arose in the west and northwest sections of Fleming County.

A deep rolling thunder added to the threatening appearance of the looming cloud and the townsfolk feared disaster was about to strike.

Shortly after 9 a.m., the storm hit the small community.

According to Wade Cooper, noted author of Early Fleming County Kentucky Pioneers, published in 1974, the historic storm left a wide path of destruction in its wake.

Cooper wrote, “The wind sung a shrill accompaniment through the telephone wires and was followed by a torrential fall of rain that had never been seen before. There was no hail in the town of Flemingsburg of any consequence, and the only damage was the blowing down of trees. One of the most handsome sugar maple trees, which had a circumference of nine feet and ten inches, and stood just west of the F.& N. R.R. Depot, was snapped off as if it were only a straw”.

Cooper goes on to add that only a short distance away in the communities of Tilton and Bald Hill, were hit with the heaviest hail storm ever experienced in the county.

At the home of Raliegh Lee,(the old Wilson home) near Tilton, there was plenty of hail on the north side of the buildings until the next day and while at the home of James E. Smith, near Allison Creek, they gathered up hail in sufficient quantities to freeze ice cream for their Sunday dinner. With it all, it seemed the hand of Providence was there too, as no lives were lost and not a dwelling house was completely wrecked, though the dwelling on the Peter Carpenter farm just below Martha Mills, occupied by William Perkins and family, was partly un-roofed and slightly damaged. The Perkins family escaped injury by fleeing to the cellar. The home of Leslie B. Newman in the same vicinity lost a new veranda, that was blown away by the wind.

All of the windows in the home of Sam. F. Fleming were broken or blown out by the hail or wind and heavy damage was done by water at the home of Mr. Fleming, which stood by Allison Creek.

The Bald Hill Orchard of V.C. Razor and Amyx-Tolliver folks were not seriously damaged by the hail, although several trees were uprooted.

Mr. Cooper’s story relates how crops of tobacco and alfalfa hay were beaten to the ground by the hail and many farmers in the Bald Hill and Smith Pike area lost livestock and garden stuff that year.

During the 1925 storm several farmers wives suffered severe injuries trying to save their chickens.

Cooper relates in his story how a girl on the farm of John O’Connor on Allison Creek was out trying to save the chickens and the wind became so strong that it was about to carry her away. She grasped a small tree and it was torn up by the wind and snatched from her grasp, leaving her to face down on the ground and was nearly beaten to death by the hail stones.

Dr. Clyde Garr of Flemingsburg had a scary experience during the storm when he was caught in his Ford Coupe on Poplar Plains Pike near the residence of Harvey Magowan. The glass windows of Dr. Garr’s new car were broken out and the top, hood and fenders were heavily damaged by the hail.

Through all the wind, hail, lightening and thunder, another monumental event was about to take place around Bald Hill.

On May 28, 1925, while the storm was raging at its strongest, J.W. Denton, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Denton, made his arrival.

Many storms have passed through Fleming County since 1925 and its possible many more will take place, be it in the spring or even on a cold December day.