July 6, 1893 — Pomeroy, Iowa

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The air was oppressive, clinging like a hot, damp blanket draped across the heartland of the United States. Despite a cooling rain the previous night and a thick blanket of clouds through the morning, midday sunshine pushed temperatures past 90 degrees by early afternoon in northwest Iowa. After a warm and dry beginning to the summer, rain was a welcome sight for the many farmers who wrested a living from the fertile prairie soil. As towering thunderheads began to burst into the muggy afternoon skies, however, concern began to grow. A stiff breeze picked up, blowing from the south and east with enough force to rustle trees and hold flags at attention. This, long-time residents knew, was cyclone weather.

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May 27, 1997 — The Jarrell, Texas Tornado

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Nestled in the Blackland Prairies at the edge of Central Texas’ Hill Country lies the small community of Jarrell. It’s a land of contrasts, with a small-but-developing town center carved into the low, rolling hills and patchy farmland. Clumps of Indian paintbrush and Texas bluebonnet provide blotches of color against the muted greens and browns of shortgrass and crop fields. A sharp, black, six-lane ribbon of asphalt bisects the town, carrying drivers between the metropolitan areas of Dallas, Waco and Austin.

If the town of Jarrell is divided by that flat, sun-baked stretch of Interstate 35, so too are its people. To the east of the interstate, the march of progress has taken hold full-force. A brand new water tower glints in the midday sun, rising more than 200 feet above its surroundings. Newly elected mayor Dewey Hulme talks excitedly about his plans for a reinvigorated Jarrell, one in which the new water tower and a sprawling 46-acre town center — planned out on a vast 153-acre parcel of land near the interstate — will begin to attract the kind of commercial and residential growth that could transform the town.

To the west of I-35, there is no water tower. There are no freshly built developments and new businesses. There is no talk of transformation. Instead, there is the stark land surrounding County Road 305. There is a park with a small community center, flanked by two emerald-green baseball fields. There is a simple memorial plaque, white lettering etched into sepia-toned granite, and a semicircular entrance ringed by trees – 27 of them. Most of all, there is the ever-present memory of the day nature conspired to wipe 50 homes and 27 of Jarrell’s mothers, fathers, children, friends and neighbors from the face of the Earth.

The Jarrell Memorial Park, with several of the 27 trees planted to honor tornado victims.