The 1925 Tri-State Tornado's Devastation In Franklin County, Hamilton County, And White County, Illinois
Bob Johns grew up in Terhune, Indiana and he became interested in weather since he lived in a rural area and talked with many farmers about weather. When he was in the sixth grade, teacher Mrs. Durr had him and the other students work on a science project and he decided to make daily records of the weather. Even though he was asked to work on the project for a few weeks, he kept doing his science project about weather until he graduated from the Sheridan High School 6 years later. He was so interested in weather because of this that he decided to go to a college and learn about meteorology. In 1962 he went to the University of Oklahoma to learn about meteorology. Just before he graduated in 1965, a major tornado event occurred on April 11th and 271 people were killed in the Indiana and nearby states. On the next day, Bob had heard about the tornado outbreak and when he read a local newspaper he found that one of the tornadoes had gone through Boone County, Indiana where his parents lived and the list of the people that were killed included people that Bob knew who were in the neighborhood where his parents lived. This really worried him. Some day later, he was able to find out that his family members had not been hit by the tornado even though it was very close to them. Because of this event, Bob wanted to learn about tornadoes so that he could let his parents and others know when they might have a tornado event that going to occur where they were. In 1971 Bob was able to get a job with the National Severe Storms Forecast Center (which is now called the Storm Prediction Center) and by the late 1970s was able to issue tornado watches where they were needed in the United States. He continued being a tornado forecaster until he retired in 2001. After retirement he and some other meteorologists decided to work on a science project about the 1925 Tri-State Tornado event which was the worst tornado disaster