Even though local weather forecasters did not predict severe weather during their 5 p.m. telecasts on May 11, 1970, a dark funnel cloud formed and dropped rain, hail, and a tornado onto Lubbock, Texas five hours later.

The storm killed 26 people and caused millions of dollars in damage, leaving thousands of people homeless. As a result, new graduates of Lubbock’s Texas Tech University understood when campus administrators offered the school’s auditorium as emergency shelter and cancelled the commencement slated for that week.