On the day one of the deadliest tornadoes in U.S. history destroyed a 40-block section of downtown Poplar Bluff, Mo., residents watched buildings blown down like pieces of cardboard.
"The entire Downtown was wiped out in just three minutes," later recalled resident Faye Opermann, who was a high school student at what was then the Vine Street campus. "There had been so many beautiful buildings on Main and Broadway all two and three stories. ...
"They all lay in shambles in the streets, except the old post office building, standing stately amid all the others that were now mere piles of timber, iron and bricks. ..."
May 9 will mark the 90th anniversary of what remains the 18th deadliest tornado in the nation, with 98 deaths reported.
Original news accounts, personal stories and historic photographs of this critical point in the city's history will appear Sunday in a special section of the Daily American Republic.
Although separated by decades and generations, historic flooding this week and that day share similarities in the response of the community. Just as emergency responders and volunteers have stepped up, so too did the community of early Poplar Bluff.
"Cars were buried under tons of bricks. The old courthouse was flattened to the ground. Box cars were turned over in the rail yard," former Poplar Bluff resident Jesse Wilburn Wilson told the Daily American Republic in 1994. "With the help of neighboring communities, the work of burying the dead and caring for the injured, clearing the streets and restoring electricity was begun immediately."
Wilson was 9 years old, attending Kinyon School on Vine Street on that day.
When The Daily Republican published stories of relief work and a list of the dead two days later, it was under the banner headline, "Poplar Bluff Will Rebuild."
"To be sure the task of rebuilding will not be an easy one," the editors told readers. "It will tax our efforts and our ingenuities to the utmost. It means that our confidence in our city, in our fellow man and in ourselves must remain unshaken and out of it all will emerge a greater and bigger and better Poplar Bluff."
Recovery efforts took years, but many of the buildings damaged that day were saved, while others were rebuilt. The current Butler County Courthouse was dedicated in 1929, two years after the building was damaged beyond repair.
Others, like the current home of the Daily American Republic on Poplar Street and the Hays Music building on Vine Street, were repaired and remain a vital part of the downtown community.