Last night, we stumbled across a short program broadcast by Oregon Public Broadcasting which should be required viewing by oceanfront residents around Hawaii (“Bayocean: The lost resort town that Oregon forgot”).

It tells the story of Bayocean, a once-thriving resort town on the Oregon coast, which the original developer, investors, landowners, and visitors eventually learned a very painful lesson. The ocean is a nearly irresistable force.

If you drive to the very edge of Oregon and then get out and walk, you can stand where developers built Bayocean, what they called the “Atlantic City of the West.”

It rose up in the early 1900s on a narrow sand spit that forms the western edge of Tillamook Bay.

Built at a time when the West Coast was clamoring for the refined lifestyle of the Eastern Seaboard, Bayocean had a hotel, a bowling alley, a neighborhood of homes and even a small railroad. But then, in what amounts to a slow-motion disaster, it was swept away.

As property owners along Oahu’s north shore engage in futile attempts to stop further erosion, the story of Bayocean, Oregon, is particularly relevant.

Also see:

Bayocean: History

“Bayocean: the American city that disappeared because man ignored nature,” The Guardian

Seventy-five years ago, on the evening of April 9, 1947, an F-5 tornado reported to be two miles wide at some points, swept up from Texas and across Oklahoma, finally dissipating in Kansas. Directly in its path was the small town of Woodward, Oklahoma. When the storm moved through, it demolished a reported 100 city blocks in the small town. Over 100 people were killed. 1It is still considered the worst tornado in Oklahoma history, and it remains one of the deadliest in US history.

Meda and her family family were living in Woodward at the time, while her father, a geologist by training, was working in the oil fields nearby. Meda was less than three months old. She was home with her mother the night of the storm, while many of the men were away at work when the storm hit without warning. This was prior to the development of warning systems, and the storm interrupted phone service as well, so news of the devastation took time to spread.

The Weather Channel ranks the storm as the 2nd deadliest tornado in history.

The Monster Tornado of April 9, 1947

The second-deadliest F/EF5 tornado on record was a monster that plowed for 170 miles through Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas on April 9, 1947, killing 181. The town most impacted was Woodward, Oklahoma, where 107 people perished. At some locations along the tornado’s path it was as much as two miles wide, making it one of the largest tornadoes in U.S. annals. This tornado struck just a few years before the modern warning system was established.

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