05/31/2026
Today we pause to remember the 41st Anniversary of the Tornado that devastated our area and both the lives we lost that day and the lives that will never be the same.
The tornadoes of May 31, 1985, were the worst that ever touched down in Erie and Crawford counties, rating an F4 on the tornado intensity measuring system known as the Fujita scale, according to the Tornado Project. Seventy-six people would die, and more than 900 would be injured from 32 tornadoes that were tallied in Pennsylvania and Ohio that day, according to a summary of the 1985 tornado season that the National Severe Storms Forecast Center published in 1987.
The death toll included three in McKean County, seven in Forest County, eight in Mercer and Venango counties and 11 in Crawford County.
Erie County's 12 tornado fatalities occurred in Albion and neighboring Cranesville, though touchdowns also occurred outside Corry and Union City.
On a Friday at 5:05 P.M. two tornadoes touch down 5 miles west of Albion. Hail poured over the town as the two funnel clouds merged into one and slammed the town with two hundred mph winds leveling a ten block section, ten blocks long and two blocks wide within minutes. Dozens of houses and businesses were completely destroyed or heavily damaged in the one-square-mile community leaving its 1800 residents homeless, dependent on neighbors and soon to be forth-coming emergency aid. Bonda Dahlin, whom was the Albion Mayor at the time, ordered some residents to block off the roads leading into town while she and other borough officials assessed the situation and figure out how to deal with the disaster. Two trailer parks were leveled and 9 people in the town were killed, with many more injured, missing and trapped in the destruction and debris left behind. The tornado ended a short time later, about 3 miles East, Northeast of Cranesville, but not before striking two more trailer courts, leaving 13 trailers destroyed and 3 people dead, bringing the tornado's total death toll to 12 and 82 injured. A total of 309 buildings along its path were either destroyed or damaged.
