News: Neillsville, Wis. - Tornado Disaster Exercise (1958)

Contact: Dolores Mohr Kenyon

Email: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 
 

Surnames: Schoengarth  
 

----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI.) April 24, 1958 
 

Tornado Disaster Exercise (1958) 
 

Neillsville boy scouts last Saturday participated in a simulated tornado disaster emergency exercise.   
 

Assuming that all telephone and electric wires had been knocked out by a tornado, the boys were dispatched to places where critical messenger service might be needed. 
 

Three 15-second blasts on the whistle at the American Stores Dairy Company plant was the signal which set the exercise in motion.  Scouts reported to the police headquarters in the city hall, and were dispatched, as they arrived, to the hospital, water works, telephone office, sheriff’s office, funeral homes, doctor’s offices, etc. 
 

The first boy reported for duty 90 seconds after the signal was given; within eight minutes all posts were "manned."  In making his report, Judge Lowell D. Schoengarth stated with usual thoroughness, "we might point out that the scouts were having a used (missing portion).