19801776 Club
F3 tornado cuts 11 miles through downtown Kalamazoo in 16 minutes; 5 are dead, 1,200 homeless
St. Augustine Elementary is rubble, but all 328 students had been sent home an hour before the twister arrived, sparing them.
At 4:09 in the afternoon on May 13, 1980, a tornado touched down and drove straight into the heart of downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan. Rated F3 on the Fujita scale, it cut an 11-mile path in roughly 16 minutes, killing 5 people, injuring 79, and leaving about 1,200 residents homeless — with damage tallied at $50 million. One hour before St. Augustine Elementary School was destroyed, all 328 students had been sent home on an early warning…
