It is a sultry Monday afternoon, this 10 August 1925. Brabant sighs under the heat mark that lies over the province. From scratch, a tornado raises a deadly and devastating trail of destruction from Uden to Denekamp in Twente. In Brabant, especially Zeeland and Langenboom are hit hard. Two boys come over and of dozens of houses and buildings, only heaps of twisted steel and debris remains after the natural disasters.
It takes a while before the size of the storm disaster becomes clear. But on Wednesday, August 12, the Dagblad van Noord-Brabant has reserved its entire front page for it. The story starts with a description that is not out of place in many horror films.
“Suddenly the darkness falls into, unprecedented way. A storm wind, a cyclone, an air hidding. It is not approaching – it flies, overwhelms everything that meets it on its way. Almost incredible and not to be described. In a few minutes everything homeless, terrible destruction, wounded, the Netherlands has even had a new one in the Netherlands.”
In Langenboom, 23 farms with the land are razed, in and around the village of Zeeland it concerns 67 houses, the newspaper reports. The disaster happens in just five minutes, in complete darkness.
Commissioner of the King of Brabant, Baron Arthur from Voorst to Voorst, sees with his own eyes a day later in Zeeland and the surrounding area how great the destruction is. The house of God and Klooster van Langenboom have not been spared either. “The tower was torn from the church and slipped upside down in the garden. The roof of the church is full of holes. The building is completely torn out of its seams. The fire -painted windows have been beaten to Gruizels.”
Information panels about storm disaster unveiled
In memory of the storm disaster of 1925, a total of ten information panels will be unveiled on Sunday 10 August, exactly one hundred years after the disaster. Five in Zeeland, Sunday morning at ten, and an hour later the remaining five in Langenboom. On the panels are photos and information about the Tornado. The municipality and Heemkundekring Felix Walter Langenboom, among others, have made this possible.
A reporter from the newspaper records an eyewitness account of Father Wennekendonk that your neck hairs stand upright. The priest appears to be in the church together with some boys when it is hit by the cyclone.
“Suddenly everything seemed to be in a light false, but a thunderbolt did not follow. Immediately the tower was pouring down, the choir benches broke, a large stretch of the monastery roof, the storm wind in a room and threshed around a thick mash of sand and lock.” At that time they can only have out of death.
And they are not the only ones. Multiple eyewitnesses tell horrifying stories about what they have experienced. “From a distance we saw the straight, red trunk go over the house of Tienuske van Uden. Yes, we saw how that house went flat. The Rietdekker had just finished with the new roof that day.” Well, I was nicely on my way, “Tienuske had found satisfied,” said Dorus Lamers from the Trenta neighborhood near Zeeland.
On August 18, Queen Wilhelmina will visit the destroyed villages of Zeeland and Langenboom. She donates 2500 guilders to the National Support Committee set up for the victims of the storm disaster. In the end, around 250,000 euros goes to the affectors of the Tornado in the Brabant villages.
Past
Aflied past is a weekly section about fun, remarkable or funny facts from the rich Brabant past. If you have a tip, mail to: [email protected].