Black and white postcard (14.5 x 9.5 cm). Written in the bottom right corner by the photographer is 16th and Wirt St. Looking West and in the top left is written in blue ink pen Omaha-Nebr. Tornado Easter Sunday 1913. The tree-lined street, sidewalk and yards are strewn with debris. The upper limbs of trees are stripped. Several houses are seen with roofs missing and porch roofs down. Two people are seen on the street surveying the damage.
Late in the afternoon on Easter Sunday, March 23, 1913, disaster struck Omaha in the form of a massive tornado. The path of the tornado started at 49th & Poppleton and continued through Carter Lake and Council Bluffs, IA. Areas suffering the heaviest damage were Bemis Park, Sacred Heart Academy and 24th & Lake streets. Homes of both rich and poor were leveled. Several churches were seriously damaged. Fires from broken gas mains and wood stoves raged throughout the devastated neighborhoods. 140 citizens were killed and 400 injured. The Webster Telephone Exchange at 2219 S. 29th served as a temporary morgue while the telephone operators remained at the switchboards. News of Omaha's disaster went out on the only surviving telegraph wire the Omaha Daily News. Offers of aid came in and Omaha's citizens helped one another. The 1913 Easter Tornado remains one of Omaha's greatest disasters. Source: Driscoll, Charles. Complete Story of Omaha's Disastrous Tornado, Omaha: Mogy Publishing, c1913.
