Featured Testimonial About Creighton University
Arguably the worst blizzard in Omaha history paralyzed the city in January 1975. A few months later, a powerful tornado (later rated as an EF5) plowed through the heart of Omaha and sent Creighton students to their residence hall basements.
And as if those crazy weather events weren’t enough, Mother Nature served up unbearably hot temperatures to end the summer.
What was it like to be a Creighton student during all this?
Here’s everything we could find on one of the most extreme weather years in Creighton history:
The blizzard
It didn’t take long on Jan. 10, 1975, for single-digit temperatures to mix with wind gusts of 60 mph. By midday, the roads were impassable throughout the city. At least 12 inches of snow fell in Omaha, and the wind-aided drifts rose much higher than that in spots.
Thousands of residents didn’t make it home, spending the night in bars, restaurants, bowling alleys, hotels and strangers’ homes.
Christy McKay, BSN’75, remembers traveling back from Kansas City along Interstate 29. She made it to Creighton’s campus and waited out the storm in a residence hall.
Technically, Creighton’s classes weren’t yet in session. But by the time all students returned, the campus sidewalks and stairs were still snow- and ice-covered. For several days.
Then-sophomore Mary Frost told the Creightonian that it took her hours to get to her west Omaha home from downtown. She said they had to repeatedly stop the car to chip ice off their windshields or brush snow off the hood. “Though it was hard to tell where we were, we kept on until we were within a block of home,” she said.
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The tornado
On May 6, 1975, a tornado touched down in southwest Omaha, near 96th and Q Streets, and moved north/northeast through the city.
At the time, no tornado in U.S. history had caused more damage. Estimates were anywhere between $100 to $500 million, according to reports from the Omaha World-Herald and KETV (Omaha’s ABC affiliate).
On Creighton’s campus, the warning sirens late that afternoon sent students to their residence hall basements. It was finals week and Colleen Dwyer Morrisey, BA’75, said she and her friends paused their last-minute cram sessions to ride out the storm.
The Rev. Thomas McKenney, vice president at Creighton, told The World-Herald that (thanks to early warnings) students, faculty and staff on campus were sheltered in basements about 10 minutes before the tornado arrived.
The tornado’s path ultimately didn’t reach the Hilltop. But there were students who found themselves in danger.
Mike Cook, BA’76, and Janine Denis Cook, BS’76, MS’77, told The World-Herald that they took shelter in the basement of a Sears department store at 72nd and Dodge Streets. They drove home and couldn’t believe the tragic scene they witnessed.
“We saw three houses in a row on the side of a hill that were just blown down the hill, just the foundations left,” Cook said. “One had a Cadillac upside down in the basement. Another house had a pickup truck inside it.”
The tornado also prompted Creighton officials to completely revamp the campus-wide rules and procedures for severe weather. James Doyle, associate dean of students, told the Creightonian in a 1976 article that there previously had been “no general notification, other than to dorm students, that a tornado has or may possibly touch down.”
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The heat
For five consecutive days in 1975, from Aug. 20-24, temperatures hit 100 degrees. A stretch like that has only happened one time since.
On Sept. 1, it was 103 degrees. That’s still a record high in Omaha for the month.
Then, just for good measure, in October, two more Omaha record highs were set: It was 95 degrees on Oct. 12 and 92 degrees on Oct. 13.
So, it was HOT.
And residence halls like Deglman and Kiewit did not have air conditioning.
Registering for classes inside the sweltering Old Gym was an experience — described in the 1976 Blue Jay Yearbook as an “almost impossible” task to complete.
