Groves TX Tornado
Survivor account by Mrs. Carol Crain
(used with permission by Mrs. Carol Crain)

Mrs. Carol Crain of Groves, TX will never forget the night of
November 7, 1957.  Around 9pm, Mrs. Crain went to pick up her
sister in her jeep at the middle school on 39th street in
Groves.  A football game that evening had been cancelled due
to the impending bad weather.  Not long after she picked up
her sister, Mrs. Crain heard a "sound like a locomotive" and
saw the swirling winds heading for her jeep.  "It's the end
of the world", she thought.  Mrs. Crain was then knocked
unconcious, and the next thing she remembered was waking up
in the center of the school football field - alone, and
injured.  Her left clavicle had been broken when the tornado
threw her a considerable distance into the field.  Unable to
find her sisters, some passersby helped her in the search.
They finally found her underneath the back tire of the now
mangled jeep, also injured, with gashes in her head.  "It was
just like being in the movie Twister", Mrs. Crain recalled,
but the tornado "could have wiped us all out".  Luckily, both
her and her sister survived.  The tornado went on to kill 2
other people in Groves that evening, and injured dozens of others.