A TORNADO TOUCHES
DOWN IN PINOLE By George R. Vincent, Pinole Historical Society
In late October of 1945, Pinole was pounded by a fierce
wind and rainstorm that generated a destructive tornado.
The local newspaper reported, “terrific destruction was
left in its wake.”
Pinole residents who had once lived in the tornado belt of
the Midwest said the freak windstorm had “all the earmarks
of a tornado with a warning sound before its arrival.” The
outskirts of Pinole at the western city limits on both sides
of San Pablo Avenue were most affected. The tornado, or
“twister” as some Pinoleans called it, made its erratic way up
to Tank Farm Hill outside of San Pablo. It was here where
Chevron had its huge oil storage tanks.
The tornado barnstormed through Pinole, doing thousands
of dollars in damage, injuring several residents and scaring
the life out of others. It was a miracle there were no fatalities.
My grandmother Scanlan’s ranch was on the north side of
San Pablo Avenue extending down to the Santa Fe Railroad
tracks. The area at that time was quite rural and I was
quite young. My family was visiting her and I was tired of
hearing grown-ups talking, and like a little kid I was bored
and wanted to go home. We were in the kitchen and it was
raining hard. I had nothing to do, so I looked out the big
kitchen window toward the bay and watched it rain. It was
then I saw a sight that would stay with me for the rest of my
life.
A lightning flash lit up the outside, and in that moment I
heard a roar and saw the large oak tree twist right out of the
24 MARKETPLACECONTRACOSTA.COM NOVEMBER 2018
ground and the barn disappear
into the air! Everything went
dark in the house and we could
hear power poles falling and
sparking electrical wires were
everywhere. We couldn’t get
to our old green Plymouth
because of the darkness and the
danger from fallen poles and
wires. At that time, we didn’t
know what had happened
or the extent of the damage
around us. We were so lucky the
twister had narrowly missed my
grandmother’s home. Others,
however, were not so fortunate.
At the Westman Ranch, a
chicken house disappeared but
the garage beside it remained
intact. Sheets of corrugated iron
from the roof of the chicken
house were wrapped around
trees and poles. The most
damage in Pinole was at the
popular nearby Hunters Inn
along San Pablo Avenue. Hunters
Inn was located near where The
Embers restaurant is today.
Hunters Inn matchbook
The proprietor of the Inn managed to
save himself and his wife by throwing her
to the floor and covering her with his body.
The bar and its stools stood intact while the
roof and walls were toppled. Farther up the
avenue toward San Pablo and Tank Farm
Hill, the huge steel high-tension towers
were twisted like pretzels and “flapped like
tilted hollylocks.”
Hunters Inn was a dancing and
entertainment club near the town city
limits. It had an orchestra playing three
nights a week and was a hugely popular
gathering place for locals and nearby
townsfolk, as well. During the dark days
of World War II, it was a place to boost
morale for the war effort. Its matchbook
cover motto was, “Let Us Meet at Hunters
Inn.” Many tavern-goers did just that. And
if you wanted to phone the Inn to see what
A crowd gathered to watch the Wagon
Wheel burning.
Photo courtesy of Carol de Young.