On this day in 1965, a St. Patrick’s Day tornado pulled part of the roof from Lawrenceburg Public School–while 725 children were inside.

At that time, LPS was still at its Jackson Avenue location (the building currently houses the Public School Apartment complex). According to School Superintendent Charles Holt, the storm struck the building during a morning devotional a little past 8:00 a.m.

Holt told the ‘Tennessean’ that the tornado made “absolutely no noise” as it lifted segments of the roof from the building, and that the first clue faculty and staff had that something was wrong was a sudden torrent of rainwater rushing into the building from above (the storm dumped more than 8/10″ of rain in less than an hour in neighboring Giles County),

Holt went on to say that all 725 of the school’s students were rushed to the basement

as the storm shattered windows throughout the building, uprooted huge trees in the yard, and tossed part of the roof “some 50 yards from the building.”

Miraculously, not a single child was reported injured during the storm, and one report says that school dismissed immediately after.

The storm went on to destroy Charles Leonard’s stock barn on Highway 64 and caused damage to several structures in Giles County.

The LPS tornado received national media attention, with most news outlets mistakenly referring to the school as the ‘Rosemont Elementary School.’ Rosemont is the name of the addition to the city of Lawrenceburg in which the building is located.

Were you there during that storm? Share your memories in the comments!

[Image courtesy of the Old Jail Museum]