OTTAWA — Today is the 56th anniversary of the Ruskin Heights, Mo., tornado that killed 44 people, mostly in southern Kansas City suburbs, but including James and Amma Marsh in Franklin County as well. The storm was part of the giant May 1957 central plains tornado outbreak that spawned 57 tornadoes and killed 59 people from Colorado to Illinois. The Ruskin Heights tornado, later rated as an F-5, the most powerful tornado on the Fujita scale, touched down near Williamsburg and roared 71 miles northeast along then-U.S. 50 to Kansas City. Marcia Hermreck said she was a child when her family took cover in her grandparents’ cellar near Ottawa. “We could see the tornado coming – I think I was only in the first grade – but I remember the tornado coming to Ottawa.” The super-storm barely missed the south edge of Ottawa but destroyed a truck stop and motel at the top of the hill just southwest of Ottawa and hit a rural farm house just as the Marshes were sitting down to dinner, Franklin County Historical Society’s Deborah Barker said. The worst of the damage occurred as the huge tornado ripped into the Hickman Mills and Ruskin Heights suburbs south of Kansas City, she said.
Monday, May 20, 4 p.m.
