KALAMAZOO (WKZO AM/FM) — May 13, 2020 marks 40 years since the most destructive natural disaster to ever hit Kalamazoo.
Around 4:00 p.m. May 13, 1980, a tornado touched down in the western part of Kalamazoo County and ripped through the downtown area.
The F3 twister damaged over 100 businesses, uprooted two dozen trees in Bronson Park, and left 11 miles of destruction all in about 16 minutes.
Five people were killed, 79 people were reported injured, 1,200 were displaced, and damages along Kalamazoo’s downtown and west main corridor totaled over $50 million dollars. It was also estimated that there was about $1.8 million dollars in automobile damages.
According to records at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum, “The Industrial State Bank building had just 4 of its 116 windows left intact after the tornado passed, while the six-story Gilmore Department Store suffered extensive roof damage, and its east wall collapsed outward, piling massive amounts of rubble into Farmer’s Alley below.”
Lynn Houghton, now regional history collections curator at Western Michigan University, was a college student when the tornado hit.
“You remember the way that the air felt and you remember how you were when you heard the news because it just seemed so impossible that that would happen,” Houghton explained.
Houghton described how it became etched on people’s minds the next time they heard a siren.
“About a month after it we had our tornado siren and boy did people like jump out of their shoes… I mean… everybody just hopped to it and they did what they got to do,” Houghton said.
The Kalamazoo Valley Museum is asking residents to share their stories and photos through a new virtual exhibit on their website.
An excerpt from the exhibit reads, “As we look back on the Kalamazoo tornado, the resilience of the city and the positivity of its inhabitants were paramount in the aftermath of disaster. ‘I Survived the Kalamazoo Tornado—Let’s Rebuild!’ t-shirts were produced and words of encouragement were hand painted on wooden boards exclaiming, ‘It’ll Take More Than a Wind to do Kalamazoo In’ and ‘Yes, there STILL is a Kalamazoo!’”
