THE BIGGEST TORNADO OF THESE DAYS, THE GREAT NATCHEZ

This tornado struck NATCHEZ, Mississippi, on May 7, 1840, and holds the record as the only massive tornado in the U.S. to have killed more people than it injured. The death toll was at least 317, with the majority of casualties on flatboats sunk along the Mississippi River.

The loss of life was likely greater because the deaths of enslaved people would not have been counted in this era. "There is no telling how widespread has been the ruin," wrote the Free Trader across the river in Louisiana. "Reports have come in from plantations 20 miles distant in Louisiana, and the rage of the tempest was terrible.

Hundreds of (slaves) killed, dwellings swept like chaff from their foundations, the forest uprooted, and the crops beaten down and destroyed."