1929 — May 2, Tornadoes, especially Rye Cove School (13), Scott County, VA         —     22

Compiled by Wayne Blanchard; last edit 2-9-2025 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/

–22  Grazulis. Significant Tornadoes 1680-1991. 1993, pp. 497 and 826.

            –13  12:55 F2. 12 students and teacher at Rye Cove school when building collapsed. 826.

            —  1  15:30 F3. One student at Woodville school, Rappahannock County. P. 826.

            —  2  15:30 F3. Flint Hill, Rappahannock County

            —  2  20:00 F3. La Grange, Culpepper County

            —  4  20:00 F3. Weaversville, Fauquier County (notes that possibly five died)   

–22  NWS Weather Forecast Office, Baltimore/Washington.  Virginia Tornadoes. 

Narrative Information

National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office, Baltimore/Washington: “It has been said that tornadoes do not occur in mountainous areas. This is false. It was a warm May day with a cold front moving in from the west. The first tornado hit Rye Cove in Scott County in extreme southwest Virginia. The elevation of Rye Cove is about 1500 feet and it sits between two ridges that rise another 500 feet above. The tornado struck the school house and the principal described what he saw:

“It was raining at the time, 11:55 a.m., and classes were recessed for noon. About 25 children were in the building, the remainder being on the playground. I was walking down the hall when I saw what looked like a whirlwind coming up the hollow. Trees were swaying and as the whirlwind neared the building, it became a black cloud. It struck the building and I believe I yelled. The next thing I remember, I was standing knee-deep in a pond 75 feet from where the building stood. I was badly shaken up and frightened and surprised that I was able to wade out of the water. Bodies of children were scattered over a wide radius.”

“Twelve children and a teacher were killed and 42 more were injured. The school was an oak-framed, well-constructed, two-story building. It contained 10 classrooms and an assembly room.[1] An eyewitness from a nearby hillside saw two clouds rush together about a mile down the valley. They formed the tornado that struck the school just moments later. The school  collapsed and pieces were scattered up to 2 miles. The tornado continued on for a few miles, but fortunately, no other communities were in its path. Several buildings in Rye Cove were destroyed. A total of 100 people were injured.

“At Woodville in Rappahannock County, the tornado was first seen a mile south of the town. In just a few moments, it moved through the town destroying most of the buildings including the high school. One student was crushed and killed by debris; 13 other students and 2 teachers were injured. Five were hospitalized. Some were found unconscious 200 yards away from were the school had been. There was nothing left of it. People felt it was a miracle that more were not dead. Continuing to the northeast, the tornado destroyed several homes at Flint Hill and killed two people. The tornado tracked 13 miles in Rappahannock County killing three people and injuring 30 more.

“In Bath and Alleghany Counties lies Cowpasture Valley. This valley is at an elevation of 1500 feet and lies between two ridges that rise 1000 feet above the valley. A tornado struck around 6 pm. Property losses in Coronation and Sitlington were great. At least 10 people were injured, but none were killed. An eyewitness watched the tornado form near his home. He described everything within 250 to 800 yards of the tornado’s path being destroyed. The postmaster at Covington followed the storm 17 miles. He watched it take out 150 apple trees, lift the roof off a house, and sweep away a barn. In the barn, a woman was milking a cow. She was found some distance from where the barn had stood, under its floor. One edge of the barn floor was resting on a stone wall and she, miraculously, was not injured, nor were the six cows that had been in the barn. Poultry houses were swept away and chickens were found dead and almost featherless.

“The town of Hamilton is in Loudoun County about eight miles east of the Blue Ridge Mountains and six miles northwest of Leesburg. Elevation is around 1500 feet. Here, the tornado path was 200 yards across and two miles long. It destroyed a house, barn and some smaller buildings at one farm. The husband and wife were injured, but only a cow was killed. Other nearby farms were damaged as well as a brick church.

“At 7:30 pm, a strong tornado struck Lagrange in Culpeper County. Two people were killed when their house was destroyed. The tornado tracked 10 miles into Fauquier County. It traveled another eight miles and struck Weaversville, killing four people and seriously injuring others. Eight people were sent to the hospital. Two homes and a 14-room brick building were demolished; others were severely damaged. A total of 15 people were injured. Also, a herd of 15 cattle was killed and more died later from injuries. An eyewitness described the event in a local newspaper…

“I was in my house and heard a terrible roar like several trains. I looked out and saw black clouds swirling overhead. Trees were bent to the ground and the house rattled. It was about 7:30 p.m. A neighbor told me the cyclone had hit down the road, making it difficult to drive. As I reached the place most severely struck by the storm, I saw houses that had been flattened, telephone wires were all over the place and debris was over a radius of several hundred yards. It was raining in torrents and the wind was still blowing hard. Then came the task of pulling the dead and injured from the ruins.”

“There were five tornadoes reported on that day. More may have struck remote areas. Twenty-two people were killed[2]and over 150 injured with at least a half a million dollars in damages. Four schools were destroyed; two of which were empty due to the late hour. The severe storms moved northeast into Maryland where at least two more tornadoes struck in four counties. Six people were killed and at least a dozen more injured.” (NWS. Virginia Tornadoes.  Baltimore/ Washington Weather Forecast Office, February 9, 2001 update.)

Price: “There was no warning. One minute the trees near Rye Cove Consolidated School swayed violently–the next moment, the one-story wooden school house disappeared in a cloud of swirling debris.[3] After the devastation, wails of the wounded rose from the shattered wreckage. For a time it appeared the injured would join the dead as fire from red hot stove coals caught tinder-like wreckage afire.  It was a day, and a tragedy, that the little town of Rye Cove would never forget! In one terrible, violent moment, a dozen young lives were snuffed out–the hope of the community. One teacher died in the catastrophe. Dozens of other children and adults were maimed–some for life. The community of Rye Cove was, and still is, an isolated community. Located a valley in Scott County, Virginia, residents of Rye Cove, because of their isolation, were forced to be self-reliant….

“May 2, 1929, dawned cold and damp. The light rain that fell outside the school only   added to the sodden misery of students trying to study in their classrooms….Throughout the morning in Rye Cove Consolidated School, students shivered at their desks. There was no central heating in the building so individual coal-fired, pot-bellied stoves were fired up early to help chase away the unseasonable chill. At 12 noon, classes broke for lunch. There was no cafeteria so most students and teachers went home to eat. Others brought food with them and ate at school, blissfully unaware of the terrible storm building up a short distance away.

“The first indication that something was wrong was when Principal A.S. Noblin’s landlady, Mrs. Annis Stone, interrupted his lunch by saying that a bad storm was coming up the valley. She suggested that he hustle back to the school before he got caught. A moment later Noblin left his boarding house. He glanced over his shoulder. Through the misty rain he saw a terrible blackness coming up the valley. Mrs. Stone had been right. There was a bad storm on the way. He’d better get moving.

“What Noblin couldn’t see through the heavy mist was the tornado funnel that now snaked down from the black cloud. On a nearby mountainside, J.M. Johnson was grubbing brush. He stopped to gaze at a wonder of nature that he had never seen before–a real tornado. At first he watched the approaching storm with fascination. Then, when he realized that the rain-shrouded funnel was whirling directly for the school, Johnson started running down the mountainside and toward town. Jim Morrison’s Model-A truck was just rattling around the sharp curve entering Rye Cove when he saw J.B. Stone’s store roof churn into the air. The roar was terrible–louder than anything he had ever heard before. The air was thick with debris. At first he didn’t recognize the storm as a tornado. Such things were almost unheard of in the Southwest Virginia mountains. Then the house owned by J.D. Hill uprooted right before his eyes and he caught sight of a hazy funnel cloud crossing the road just in front of him. Morrison’s car shuttered as a torrent of wind-lashed hail clattered against its windshield, blinding the driver’s vision.

“When the hail suddenly cleared, Morrison saw a large lumber pile near the school be picked up in its entirety and sucked into the funnel. To his horror, he suddenly realized the funnel cloud was headed directly for the school house. Three of the Morrison children were in that school!  Teacher Elizabeth Richmond was ready to begin class. A few moments before, she glanced out the window and had noticed the sky growing dark. Richmond remembered a howling wind. Then the building shook.[4]  Principal A.S. Noblin had just reached the front door when he turned and saw one of the two automobiles parked just outside the school be lifted into the air. Then the funnel had hit the building broadside.  The schoolhouse was suddenly a pandemonium of roaring wind, smashing lumber, breaking windows, and terrified screams of students and teachers. The air was thick with shrapnel–broken glass, splintered wood, desks, pens and pencils, books, shards of slate backboards, hot glowing coals, and heavy cast iron stoves–all whirling around and a around in a terrible maelstrom.

“Twelfth-grader Loy Osborne jumped up from his desk and dove for the doorway. From the corner of his eye he saw Principal Noblin disappear in a avalanche of wooden beams. Then Osborne felt himself being lifted up. The next thing he knew, he was outside the building. Classmate Garrett Davidson never made it outside the classroom. A heavy object smashed the base of his skull, crushing it. Then the floor collapsed under him. Eleven-year-old Mabel McDavid tried to make it to her classroom door when a shard of plate glass sliced into her leg, nearly severing it from her body.   Some students with presence of mind, crawled under their desks to escape the lethal missiles swirling around them. Suddenly the whole side wall of the school blew inward bringing with it razor sharp wood splinters and shards of glass. Another part of the building collapsed in a cascade of shattered wood, glass, heavy desks, books, paper, red-hot stoves, teachers and children. The back wall of the school was caught in the vortex, seemed to pause a moment in mid air, then crumbled as if it was made of nothing!  

“The sound of the storm faded as a heavy rain fell in its wake. A stunned silence settled over the wreckage. Then students and teachers, trapped under the wreckage, began to cry for help. Some tried to claw their way out. Then a new a new danger arose. Fires from overturned stoves flared in the wooden wreckage of Rye Cove School.

“Lying flat on his back next to the pond, Loy Osborne, who had been forcibly ejected from the building by the wind, heard the muffled screams of trapped children and teachers. He scrambled to his  feet. Severe pain shot up his left arm and nearly took his breath away. Blood soaked his shirt sleeve. A gaping wound had laid open his left shoulder and cut deeply into the muscle. But he quickly forgot his injury when he saw the chaos around him. Osborne saw piles of wood catching fire, in spite of the heavy rain that was now falling. Those underneath would be burned to a crisp in no time unless someone acted quickly. In spite of his pain Osborne rushed to the pond, an empty bucket in his good hand, just as Jim Morrison’s truck chugged across the rain-soaked field and slid to a stop in front of him. “The building’s on fire!”  Osborne shouted as he dipped his bucket into the muddy water.  Morrison bounded from the vehicle. Huge raindrops slapped his face, nearly blinding him. “Form a bucket brigade” he ordered. “I’ll get one of those tractors parked over there and pull wreckage away from the fire.”

“Parents from nearby houses rushed to the shattered schoolhouse. Desperately they called   out the names of their children while picking through the wreckage. Some joined in the bucket brigade. Fortunately, the heavy rain that fell in the wake of the tornado helped keep the fires from spreading. Morrison and another man used the two tractors, left by road workers, to pull debris away from the flames. Between the rain and the bucket brigade, the fires were extinguished in short order.

“Now came another problem. One dirt road connected Rye Cove to the nearest town. The downpour had turned it into a gummy bog. The storm had also knocked out the few telephones in town. For all intents and purposes, Rye Cove was completely cut off from the rest of the world. Two men volunteered to go to Clinchport, eight miles away, for help. One jumped on a horse. The other climbed into his automobile and began to slush over the muddy roads. The man on the horse made it to Clinchport first. Upon arriving, the horseman told a local physician, Dr. Fugate, about the tragedy at Rye Cove. The doctor ran to his phone and called King’s Mountain Memorial Hospital and the sheriff’s office in Gate City. Both assured him that help was on the way.  By the time Dr. Fugate finished talking on the phone, the man with the car had arrived. Dr. Fugate commandeered the vehicle and driver, and piled the car high with all the medical supplies he could gather. He knew, from the description of the injuries already given him, that there would be those who could not wait for help from the outside. He had to get to Rye Cove as quickly as possible. Just before he left for Rye Cove, Dr. Fugate’s telephone rang. When he picked it up, he was told that the Southern Railway was dispatching a special train to Clinchport to transport the wounded to Bristol. Could he make arrangements to have the injured carried to Clinchport. Dr. Fugate replied that he would do his level best to make such arrangements. Then he hung up the phone and ran out of his house to the waiting automobile.

“Meanwhile, back in the town of Rye Cove, the injured, the dead, and the dying, were carried to surrounding houses and barns. A preliminary tally was made of those already dead:

17-year-old Polly Carter, ten-year-old Callie Bishop, and about seven others. Residents did what they could for the injured, but without medical help the task was overwhelming. Simple cuts and fractures were one thing, but some of the injuries were dreadful.   One young man had broken his back. Little Mabel McDavid’s leg had been nearly lobbed off by flying glass. Garrett Davidson was alive, but barely, the base of his skull crushed by flying debris. A few of the men began discussing how they could get the injured–more than 50 at last count–to a hospital. By now the rain had stopped, but the road was a muddy mess. It seemed as if all nature had conspired against Rye Cove that day and that as soon as one problem was solved, another would crop up. Just when things looked darkest, Dr. Fugate arrived with expertise and medical supplies. He told the weary rescuers about the special train being sent to Clinchport and that they should make immediate arrangements to transport the injured there.

“One of the rescuers was a tall man with a long sad face. He was no stranger to anyone in Rye Cove because nearly everyone had heard him, his wife, Sara, and sister-in-law Maybelle, sing at church socials and other occasions. The group had even recorded some records for the Victor Talking Machine Company. That made them celebrities. The man was Alvin Pleasant Delaney Carter of nearby Maces Springs. Everyone either called him “A.P.” or Doc, and, at the time, he and his family were poised on the brink of musical immortality. Two years before, the Carter Family had journeyed to Bristol to cut some test records for Ralph Peer of Victor Records. The session had been a success and more sides were recorded in Camden, New Jersey, then released on record to the public. A. P. Carter had been at a nearby school arranging for a concert when he heard that the Rye Cove School had been destroyed by a tornado. He instantly jumped into his car and raced to the scene.

“Dr. Fugate was functioning on instinct. There we so many injured.  Six year old Charlie Morrison, for instance, was said to have been picked up by the  storm, carried over a nearby storehouse, and then deposited in the middle of the road. His survival had been a miracle. He was apparently none the worse for wear except that a large splinter had been driven completely though his foot. Dr. Fugate quickly removed the splinter.

“Little Mabel McDavid’s injuries were more life threatening. Her leg had been almost severed by flying glass and was now hanging on by only a piece of bloody flesh. Dr. Fugate completed the amputation that the storm had begun, using the counter of the wrecked Stone store as an operating table. According to legend, the severed leg was carelessly tossed under the counter and forgotten until it was discovered the next day and afforded a decent burial.

“As Dr. Fugate worked feverously, farmers hitched up wagons and carefully loaded the injured aboard… Then the first wagons in the pitiful, waterlogged caravan slogged its way to Clinchport. By the time it arrived, the rescue train was already there–doctors and nurses from Bristol aboard. So the rescue effort went all afternoon and, by 5:30 p.m., the last of the injured had been loaded aboard the train, which, then, pulled out for Bristol.

“King’s Mountain Memorial Hospital’s corridors were jammed with anxious parents looking after their injured young. The newspapers, on the other hand, were looking after a story. In the process rumor piled on rumor.

“Frenzied journalists often reported anything they heard without first checking the facts. On May 4, two days after the disaster, the Kingsport Times reported that 19 were confirmed dead. It had even released the names of two children who were still alive! Some newspaper accounts, Knoxville’s for instance, reported  the number the dead as 50.

“Scott County Sheriff H.S. Culbertson finally sorted out the numbers. There was a total of 13 deaths (twelve students and one teacher) and 54 injuries. Ten had died at the scene, one died in a wagon on the way to Clinchport, one died on the rescue train between Clinchport and Bristol, and one died the next day in the hospital in Bristol. 

“When word of the catastrophe at Rye Cove reached the rest of the world, donations poured in. The American Red Cross even built a permanent log cabin near the ruined school to render aid to families touched by the storm. That cabin still stands today, the hand-painted red cross still visible on the front door.

“There was no school term in Rye Cove during 1929-1930. The new Rye Cove Memorial High
School opened in the fall of 1930 with A.S. Noblin, who had been pulled from the wreckage
of the old school, as principal. A bronze plaque, naming the thirteen victims, was placed
on the new building.

“Their names are:

Callie Bishop, age 10, Rye Cove.

Monnie Bishop, age 8, Rye Cove.

Teacher Ava Carter, age 24, Rye Cove.

James Carter, 12, Rye Cove.
Polly Carter, age 18 , Rye Cove.
Lillie Lee Carter, age 12, Clinchport.
Bruce Cox, age 16, Gate City.
Bertha Mae Darnell, age 15, Rye Cove.
Guy Davidson, age 18, Rye Cove.
Bernice Fletcher, age 8, Rye Cove.
Monnie Fletcher, age 14, Rye Cove.
Emma Lane, age 6, Rye Cove.
Mille Stone, age 12, Rye Cove.

“….The old bell from Rye Cove Consolidated School and the original bronze table, now stand just outside Rye Cove Intermediate School in a new memorial as a reminder of those terrible events almost 70 years ago.  And there is another reminder of that terrible day, this one preserved in shellac. A.P. Carter, patriarch of the Carter Family, the man so shocked at the carnage, went sadly home that night to Maces Springs. There he wrote a song about what he had seen. A few months later, he, Sara and Maybelle recorded their new disc for Victor Records –The Cyclone of Rye Cove–that vividly described the tragedy to an entire nation….”  (Price, Charles. E. “Death in the Afternoon.”  Rye Cove Intermediate School Memorial website.) 

Sources

Grazulis, Thomas P. Significant Tornadoes 1680-1991: A Chronology and Analysis of Events. St. Johnsbury, VE: Environmental Films, 1993, 1,326 pages.

National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office, Baltimore/Washington. Virginia Tornadoes. NWS, NOAA. 2-9-2001 update.  Accessed at:  http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/lwx/Historic_Events/va-tors.html

Price, Charles Edwin. “Death in the Afternoon.” Rye Cove Intermediate School Memorial website. Accessed 11-25-2009 at: http://scott.k12.va.us./rci/storm.htm

[1] “The Rye Cove High School, which had a total enrollment of 250 students, was a seven room frame, two story structure on a limestone foundation and was located in an open field at the widening of a narrow valley.” (Kingsport Times (TN). “Mortality May Reach 25; Injured Estimated at 90.” May 3, 1929.)

[2] Adding up the notations of killed in these paragraphs totals 25 fatalities.

[3] During the middle nineteenth century in Rye Cove, Washington Institute was where school was held for prospective teachers during the summer months.  In 1907, a four-room frame school was built with classes through the ninth grade. In the summer of 1915, the school was converted to a two-story structure with the addition of two classrooms and an auditorium.  The tenth grade was also added to the curriculum. In the summer of 1923, two more classrooms were added.  On May 2, 1929 the school building at Rye Cove was completely destroyed by a tornado.”  (Rye Cove Intermediate School History.)

[4]  “Miss Elizabeth Richmond, a teacher in the high school grades in the school and herself injured, gave her version of the tragedy to a representative of The Times while waiting for an ambulance to take her to the relief train which was being filled with injured children at Clinchport. She said “We had only started school after the mid-day recess when I noticed that a bad storm was coming up. It alarmed me but I didn’t say anything to the children. The wind increased to a very high degree with a loud howling noise and the building collapsed with a smash. It was probably only a few seconds between the time when I thought the building was in danger and the time it collapsed. I was on the second floor.” (Kingsport Times (TN). “Mortality May Reach 25; Injured Estimated at 90.” May 3, 1929.)