DALLAS — The tornado ripped the heavy doors off the First Baptist Church, but spared the building, and so that’s where they placed the bodies and treated the wounded. Nearly everything else in the small North Texas town was destroyed.
Nearly 100 years ago Friday, on May 9, 1927, two tornadoes ripped through Garland and then Collin County, decimating the town of Nevada. In all, 34 people were killed and 140 were injured, according to the National Weather Service. The storm was one of the most significant tornado events in Texas history, and the deadliest in North Texas, according to the National Weather Service.
It produced “two distinct tornadoes,” according to the report in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram later that day. The first one spun up in the early-morning hours in the Garland area before the storm “leaped” into Collin County around 3 a.m…