Fb2 Twister ePub

Rather like all disaster fiction there's some cheesy and carbon cutout characters, but the tornadoes are described in incredible detail, as is the violence that they wreak. The Thatcher, OH tornado was obviously modeled after the Xenia F5 - it even spawned a satellite tornado (which big tornadoes quite often do), which caused damage far away from the main wedge. He got a ton right about tornadoes and quite a few of the scenes hold up even today (save for the outdated communication technology).

As others have said, this is the story that the movie Twister wanted to be in 1996; with some modern redesign it would do very well as a movie even today.

Not to be confused with the 1996 movie, Jack Bickham's "Twister" is a fictional book written in the mid 70's and somewhat based on the true to life tornado "super outbreak" of 1974. The outbreak in this book covers almost the entire U.S. east of the Mississippi, with suspensful descriptions of tornadoes striking various areas, weaved in with a cross section of well rounded characters; from a Congressman to a trucker, a small city mayor to a rural grandmother, and many other interesting side stories. The author also takes one inside the world of tornado science, from the perspective of the Severe Storm Forecast Center, and Severe Storms Lab, although the technology is a bit dated now. The book moves at a rapid pace, and with all the interesting characters in peril throughout the book, you will read it from cover to cover in very short order, and enjoy every bit of it. Hollywood should have used this as a template for the movie - I still think they should, but maybe it would be a better mini series (are you listening HBO?)

I first read this book about 20 years ago when I happened across it by chance at the local library. I was obsessed about tornadoes (and still am) and snapped it up instantly. I quickly read the whole book and have probably read it at least a dozen times since then after I found it at the local paperback shop. Needless to say I had nightmares for a long time after I read this as a pre-teen. The book is set in April of 1975 and the author was completely up to date on the technology of the day. Bickham gives ultra-realistic depictions of the Severe Storms Forecast Center operations (out of Kansas City at the time) and how warnings are disseminated during a massive tornado outbreak in the Midwest. The Super Outbreak of April 1974 is acknowledged as having occurred the previous year and this outbreak would be even larger with more deaths and injuries. The book skips around different settings like a typical disaster movie and focuses on the following:

-The staff at SSFC in Kansas City

-The mayor and family of fictional Thatcher, Ohio, a city of about 75,000 that gets nailed by a mile-wide killer tornado

-A West Virginia attorney with aspirations to run for governor but runs into trouble with a spiteful mistress

-A successful author from Birmingham, AL with a bad case of writer's block and a wife who gets too caught up in the high life

-An elderly grandmother from rural Kentucky who is faced with protecting her grandchildren from a devastating tornado

This is just a sampling of the pieces that put together the whole story.

Here is a list of some of the cities affected by the outbreak with varying degrees of detail in the book:

Topeka, KS
Olathe, KS
Farmington, MO
Birmingham, AL
Columbus, OH
Thatcher, OH (fictional)
Paducah, KY
suburban Louisville, KY
suburban Atlanta, GA
Huntington, WV
Bloomington, IN
Charlotte, NC
Harrisburg, PA

Overall the author does a good job of developing characters but there is no shortage of descriptions of tornado violence and graphic injuries. He really paints a picture of how a tornado behaves and the destruction they are capable of causing. For 1975, this book was pretty cutting edge and probably freaked more than a few people out. It holds up well today and would make an excellent movie. This book fills the gaps of what much of the 1996 movie lacked, mainly densely populated areas getting hit by deadly tornadoes and the human consequences of such a storm passing through.

Interesting note: Even though Dr. Fujita had already developed the famous F-scale rating system for tornado damage by the time this book was written, it is not referenced in the book.