The
year 2013 marks the 65th anniversary of the operational
tornado forecast. It is not so well known, however, that it also
marks the 65th anniversary of the first successful
implementation of a large-scale tornado safety plan, particularly at
a government facility. While the two men responsible for the actual
forecast, Robert Miller and Ernest Fawbush, have been justly
celebrated and memorialized for their work, another individual played
a part in this dramatic sequence, which, while much less celebrated,
was just as important in reducing property damage and injuries, and,
especially, saving human lives. The purpose of this article is to
remedy this injustice, and give this individual the acclaim that this
writer feels is his rightful due. His name: Major General Fred
Sydney Borum, better known to his friends as “Fritz” Borum.
The
events in question took place at Tinker Air Force Base, not far from
what is now Will Rogers World Airport, near Oklahoma City, in March
of 1948. At 10 P.M. on the evening of March 20, a large, ferocious
tornado funnel began a 7-minute trip across the base, damaging or
destroying some 100 aircraft. One such plane, a B-29 bomber,
weighing in excess of 68 tons, was picked up by the twister and flung
more than 100 yards away. A C-54 was flipped on its back as if it had
been made of paper. Winds speeds on the ground as high as 78 miles
an hour were recorded before the base’s weather instruments broke.
(Local weathermen later projected wind speeds in excess of 100 MPH.)
Heavy hail, torrential rains, and continuous lightning only served to
make matters even worse. Although only 6 persons were reported as
having been injured, Miller (in an unpublished manuscript entitled
“The Unfriendly Sky”) bluntly stated that, “The control tower
personnel were badly cut [by flying glass and debris].”
It
was at this point that Fritz Borum came into the picture. A
respected
expert in the field of air materiel
management, Borum had been in command of Tinker AFB since July 1945.
He had only recently returned from a 3-month assignment in which he
had organized and supervised the care and maintenance
of the aircraft involved in the Berlin Airlift. He had grown up in
Oklahoma, and was actually more familiar with Oklahoma's violent
weather patterns than Miller and Fawbush, both of whom had been
assigned to Tinker's weather station only
weeks before. An avid amateur weather buff in his own right, Borum
was a radar expert as well. Miller, in fact, stated: “He
was very interested and most knowledgeable when it came to weather.
He was highly proficient in the operation of our local radar and
loved to watch the scope during thunderstorm outbreaks.”
With
such a background as this, it was not surprising that, at a formal
inquiry the next day, General Borum thoroughly grilled Miller and
Fawbush as to why they had not in fact forecast a tornado. When he
was told that forecasting tornadoes was impossible, and that the U.S.
Weather Bureau had expressly forbidden even the use of the word
“tornado” in any official weather statement since the 1870's,
Borum all but went up in smoke. He forcefully rejected any
and all such
notions,
and specifically directed Miller and Fawbush
to begin research into the
subject without delay.
While the two
forecasters were conducting their research, in compliance with the
formal directive of the board of inquiry, Borum got together with his
staff to prepare a Base Tornado Safety Plan to help reduce or
minimize injuries and property damage in the event of any future
tornado or other severe weather outbreaks. Within three days, the
new plan was complete and ready to put into effect.
As it
turned out, Borum and his staff completed their work none too soon,
for on the morning of March 25th,
Miller and Fawbush reported that developing weather patterns in the
central Oklahoma basin were becoming frighteningly similar to those
that had existed only five days before. Borum immediately went to
the Tinker weather station to discuss the situation with the two men.
After looking at the
images
on the radar scope, Borum's
initial response was to direct Miller and Fawbush to issue what today
would be called a Severe Thunderstorm Watch. In conjunction with
this forecast, the initial phases
of the Base Tornado Safety Plan were implemented. The
General then returned home, asking to be informed
of further
developments.
Those
developments were not long in coming, for by 2 o'clock in the
afternoon, a squall line had
developed,
and became increasingly dangerous and intense. Borum was notified,
and immediately returned
to the weather station. He spent ten long minutes watching the scope
and discussing the squall line's movement and intensity. Then,
suddenly, Borum shot to his feet, looked the two forecasters in the
eye, and asked, “Are you going to issue a tornado forecast?”
Fawbush
and Miller, realizing that their careers could well be on the line,
made a desperate attempt to back out. They pointed out that the odds
against a second tornado hitting the base in such a short period
of time were less than 1 in 20 million. Borum, however, was in no
mood to accept such hemming and hawing. His face turning brick red
with anger, his vocabulary liberally seasoned with military
expletives,
Borum yelled at the top of
his lungs, “ARE WE GOING TO HAVE ANOTHER TORNADO
OR NOT? YES OR NO?”
Swallowing hard,
the two men took a deep breath and answered, “Yes, sir, we believe
we are.” Borum thereupon ordered them to prepare a tornado
forecast for immediate dissemination throughout the base. As they
began doing so, they timidly pointed that no one had ever prepared a
tornado forecast such as this before. “Fine!” Borum snapped.
“You are about to set a precedent!”
Realizing
that further arguments would
be worse than useless, Fawbush composed the world's first operational
tornado forecast—what would be called a Tornado Watch
today—and handed it over to Miller, who typed it up and took it to
the Base Operations office for immediate distribution. Meanwhile,
Borum got on the phone and directed his staff to put all remaining
phases of the new Tornado Safety Plan into immediate execution.
Despite
its bureaucratic detail, Borum's Tornado Safety Plan can be boiled
down into five basic steps, all of which have long since become
accepted practice in severe weather safety. First, as many planes as
possible were moved into hangars on the Base, the doors and windows
of which were then shut. Secondly, all remaining planes on the Base
were tied down as securely as possible. Third, all loose objects and
equipment were moved indoors and secured. Fourth, all incoming air
traffic was diverted away from the Base until further notice. Fifth,
and most importantly, all personnel were evacuated to basement
shelters and to the lowest
floor interior areas of thick, solid, sturdy buildings.
Shortly after his
shift ended at 4:45 P.M., Miller left and drove home. Both he and
Fawbush felt certain that their careers as weather forecasters were
about to go down the drain. So much so, in fact, that Miller later
wrote that he actually wondered if he could make a living as a
civilian elevator operator!
As it turned out,
they needn't have worried, for just before 6 P.M., another tornado
formed, striking in almost the exact same place, and following almost
exactly the same path, as its predecessor from five days earlier.
From his back porch, Borum watched what he later described as a
radish-shaped, dirty yellow colored funnel tear through his base like
a gigantic buzz-saw, only to dissipate five minutes later.
When
all was said and done, the final damage estimate was an additional $6
million on top of the $10
million in damage from 5 days before.
84 aircraft, primarily B-29's and P-47's, were hit by the twister, 35
of them damaged beyond repair. Hundreds
of yards of steel planking, used as a parking surface for the
aircraft, were ripped off the ground and crumpled. Winds on the
ground at the edge of the storm were measured at approximately 80
miles per hour, accompanied by “moderate” hail.
Despite all of
this carnage, there was, in fact, considerable good news to report.
For one thing, the final damage total was an incredible 40% LESS than
the damage total from only five days previous. Even more important
was the fact that only one minor injury was reported—a stark
testament to the wisdom of General Borum's Tornado Safety Plan, which
had now officially passed its baptism of fire.
As was
characteristic of him, Fritz Borum receded into the background,
allowing Fawbush and Miller to receive the glory they rightly
deserved. To the end of their lives, however, both men, and Miller
especially, repeatedly stated that they felt that Borum should have
received as much credit as they had. After all, they pointed out to
anyone who would listen, it was Borum who had pushed the two men into
making the historic tornado prediction in the first place. Even more
important than that was the fact that it was Borum and his staff who
had devised the Tornado Safety Plan for Tinker Air Force Base, which,
in turn, had produced such a spectacular reduction in property
damage, and, especially, in injuries to base personnel. Thus, Borum
had played just as vital a role in the development of severe weather
safety practices and procedures as Fawbush and Miller had in
developing techniques for predicting severe weather.
Fritz Borum
retired from the Air Force in June of 1954, at the age of 62. He
spent his last years as a vice president of Liberty National Bank and
Trust Company in Oklahoma City, and played a major role in the
development of what is now Will Rogers World Airport. He died of
bone cancer on October 25, 1978, in Cocoa Beach, and was buried, with
appropriate honors, at the Florida Memorial Gardens in Cocoa,
Florida.
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