Elbert-Hart-Franklin County GaArchives News.....Seventeen Killed By Tornado In Piedmont Section April 18, 1944
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Valerie Craft http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00017.html#0004248 March 27, 2009, 5:41 pm

Morning News - Florence, SC April 18, 1944
Atlanta, April 17 - (A1) - Dazed survivors worked under a blazing sun today to clear
away wreckage of 
a tornado that killed 38 persons in Northeast Georgia and Western South Carolina.

Search of the approximately 150 demolished homes revealed no new casualties and many
of the less 
seriously injured were able to leave hospitals. The Red Cross reported tonight that
39 were still under 
hospital treatment in the two states.

As Highway crews opened roads to traffic, residents of Franklin and Hart counties in
Georgia and 
Greenwood county in South Carolina made plans for reconstruction. Insurance
adjusters reported many 
of the destroyed homes were not insured and said some of the victims had lost all
their personal 
possessions.

At Royston, Ga., where the storm struck in the early hours Sunday killing 12
persons, a fire hazard was 
created by leakage from two of five large gasoline storage tanks damaged by the
twister.

The storm also kit the N---g community, killing nine persons, and took 17 additional
lives in South 
Carolina.

Related reports told of an earlier storm that hit in Cook county, (Ga.) Saturday
afternoon, destroying 
two home but injuring no one.

Regional Director Francis P. Simerville of the Red Cross said the following injured
persons were in 
hospital:

Ridgeway hospital, Royston: George Royston Jr., Mrs. Ollie Hayes, Mrs. Minnie Lee
Hayes, Ernst L. 
Hayes, Miss Ann Bryant, Betty Jo Outz, Frankie Outz and Mrs. Rosa Lee Outz.

Brown's hospital, Royston: Mr. and Mrs. Bert Floyd, Mrs. Amos Floyd, Miss Louella
Phillips and Richard 
Royston.

St. Marys hospital, Athens, Ga.: Mrs. M. A. Caynell Lawson.

Thompson - Johnson Hospital, Elberton, Ga.: George Lunsford, Sherman Lunsford, John
Harper, Faye 
Seawright, Roma [?] Teasley, William White [?], C [?] Teasley, R. H. Seawright, Rugh
Margie and Thomas 
Rucker, Ben Rucker, his son and his grandmother, Mrs. Paul Gaines and baby.

Elbert County (Ga.) hospital: Augustus Seawright, 17.

Anderson County, (S.C.) hospital: John Fleming, Jr., Cleveland Hayes, Mr. and Mrs.
Rufus Flecman, Babby 
Fleeman, Betty Jean Fleema, Walter Royston, Leslie Rucker and Hank [?] Rucker.

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