The 1984 tornadoes: Newberry ‘looked like a war zone.’

The Carolinas tornado outbreak of March 28, 1984 was the most destructive wave of twisters to sweep through the two states in a century.

The statistics were staggering with 24 tornadoes touching down: 11 in North Carolina, 11 in South Carolina and two in Georgia. They included seven F4 storms.

The human impact was equally staggering: 57 fatalities, (42 in North Carolina, 15 in South Carolina, none in Georgia) and 1,248 injuries. (799 in North Carolina, 448 in South Carolina, and 1 in Georgia). The storms affected two counties in Georgia, eight counties in South Carolina and 17 counties in North Carolina.

In Winnsboro, a twister struck at about 6:30 p.m. a mile north of town. It killed six people in three counties with with most of the deaths in a Winnsboro shanty row called Smalltown.

Another appeared in Honea Path in Anderson County and was followed by a series of ten tornadoes along a line from Anderson and Newberry counties east-northeast through Marlboro County into North Carolina. Funnels clouds were also spotted in Greenwood, Greenville, Due West, Laurens County.

One of the worst tornadoes touched down in several spots in Newberry County. In the town of Newberry, the 20-block size tornado ripped through the Main Street business district. Two people were killed, 50 wer injured, numerous houses were destroyed and four buildings were later torn down as they were too severely damaged for repair.

According to one observer, downtown Newberry “looked like a war zone.”

This story was originally published November 11, 2015 at 9:13 PM.