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Vintage KSDK: Powerful tornado hits St. Louis, kills 3 on Jan. 24, 1967

The tornado touched down in Chesterfield and then tore a path of destruction through north St. Louis County, killing two girls and a woman.

ST. LOUIS — Our Vintage KSDK takes us back to Jan. 24, 1967, the evening an EF-4 tornado killed three people including two girls in St. Louis County and injured 217 people.

Neighbors rescued neighbors from the debris.

"I heard some people across the street screaming that somebody was buried,” one survivor said. “So I ran over there and it was a little girl. It was dark, I couldn't see. But Ernie kind of held up the wall, and I crawled in under there and kind of felt around. I felt her back in there, but I couldn't get down to her. So I came out and went around and somehow got through the back."

The twister first touched down around 6:45 p.m. in Chesterfield, damaging a nursing home.

It then moved northeast across a long swath of North St. Louis County, destroying property in Maryland Heights, St. Ann and Spanish Lake.

"We were in the basement,” a woman who lost her home said. “We were trapped and the gas fumes were so bad we couldn't get out. And the neighbor, he pulled us out of the basement."

A little boy told our reporter that as the skies darkened, things quickly turned to chaos.

"It was pretty scary. I couldn't find my mom or dad or, um, I was looking for them and everything was hitting me. It was terrifying," he said.

Power was out and telephone lines were down for days.

Hospitals in St. Louis were overwhelmed with those injured in the storm.

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