Columbus Day storm, 1962: the day ‘a meteorological bomb’ exploded in the Northwest

Editor’s note: The hurricanes that ravaged the Southeast this fall rekindled memories of the biggest tempest to hit the Northwest: The Columbus Day Storm of 1962. This story from News Tribune archives was originally published on Oct. 12, 2002.

The wind roared like a wild thing.

Charley Brammer leaned into it, pitting his 7-year-old strength against the rushing air. He could hear tree branches snapping.

It was Oct. 12, 1962. The Columbus Day Storm, a tempest weathermen called “a meteorological bomb,” was exploding in the Northwest. It would kill 46 people — seven in Washington — fell trees by the thousands and shuck shingles from roofs like husks of corn.

Charley didn’t know any of that yet. He had followed his parents outside to look at the roof on their house in Spanaway. His father, Ray Brammer, squinted through the wind and pointed a flashlight. The lowest row of shingles stood straight up.

Charley spread his arms out like an airplane. The wind pushed him. He stumbled. Then something heavy knocked him to the ground — something with fur. He thought it was the family dog.

“Get off me, Whitey,” he said.

But it wasn’t Whitey.

Charley tried to roll over. The snarling thing bit him in the face. Something wet clouded his eyes.

Ray Brammer whirled toward the sound of his son’s high-pitched cry and started running, his wife, Mary, close behind. Was it a dog? Too dark to tell.

He wrapped his arms around the thing’s neck and pulled. Holy cow, he thought — not a dog. Too big, too strong. Holy cow — a damn lion, escaped somehow.

“Run for the house, Charley!” Ray shouted, struggling to hold the writhing cat.

A monster the size of a coastline

The Columbus Day Storm was a monster the size of a coastline. Today, meteorologists call it the most severe nontropical storm in the history of the lower 48 states. It blew down 15 billion board feet of timber and bruised thousands of homes.

Forty years ago, its damages were measured in millions. Today, experts say the number would have more zeroes.

More recent storms, such as the Inauguration Day blow of January 1993, don’t compare, said Ted Buehner, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle. He gave the Inauguration Day storm a rating of 6 on a scale of 10. Columbus Day was a 10.

“That gives you a feel for how intense this windstorm was,” he said.

Running the wrong way

Charley ran the wrong way at first, his vision blurred by blood. Finally, he stumbled toward the house. Too late. The lion tore itself from Ray’s grasp, and ran after Charley, devouring the distance to its prey with terrible strides.

It caught Charley at the front steps. His head hit the concrete.

Ray and Mary attacked together, beating the 200-pound lion back with the flashlight and a slipper. They grabbed Charley, struggled into the house and locked the door.

Outside in the howling storm, the lion stalked back and forth.

Ray pressed towels on his son’s face, trying to stop the bleeding. Charley still couldn’t see. His face was swollen. He felt his father lift the towels away. He heard his mother scream.

‘A rather dynamic mixture’

The storm was born in the Pacific Ocean, from the remnants of a typhoon named Frieda. Warm, tropical air met a lofty trough of low pressure along the West Coast, hitched a ride on a strong jet stream and coupled with a cold front from the Gulf of Alaska.

“A rather dynamic mixture,” Buehner said. Weather patterns stir the same soup now and then, he said, but rarely so close to the coast.

Barometers dropped like stones. In the newsroom at The Tacoma News Tribune, the pressure measured 28.94 inches — a full inch below normal levels.

The forecasters saw it coming then — high wind warnings were issued up and down the coast — but the fledgling emergency management system in place at the time gave little warning of the storm’s ferocity.

“There were no satellite pictures,” Buehner said. “There were no weather buoys. Television was what, maybe 10 years old. The only thing that really worked well during that event was radio.”

The lion

Charley needed a doctor. Ray looked outside. The lion paced near their car. He picked up the phone and called a neighbor for help. No, Ray said, he hadn’t been drinking.

The neighbor arrived with a car and a baseball bat. The family stepped out the back door and looked around. No sign of the lion. Ray carried Charley to the car and put him in the front seat.

The lion sprang. It clawed past Ray, toward the scent of Charley’s blood. Ray wrestled it, and fought his way into the car.

Charley could see a little now. His father had a baseball bat. He swore and clubbed at something, then shut the car door.

Front page of the Oct. 13, 1962, edition of The News Tribune.
Front page of the Oct. 13, 1962, edition of The News Tribune.

Fallen trees

The storm’s tail canceled the sixth game of the World Series in San Francisco. Its torso bulled through Oregon, with wind speeds as high as 176 mph — an improbable speed recorded at Mount Hood.

Its arms encircled Western Washington. Winds as high as 160 mph were recorded in Pacific County. Ten-foot swells crashed onto the shores of Vashon Island. The stately George Washington elm on Olympia’s capitol campus groaned and fell.

Another tree fell on a car in Thurston County, killing Wilbur and Carol Archibald of Yelm. In Pierce County, the storm killed George Kaiser, 30, a Milton resident who got too close to a downed power line. David Kight of Lakebay narrowly missed a similar fate when a tree landed on his car. His wife lost a tooth.

Trees fell all over Tacoma — 70 in Wright Park alone. The power went out. Local radio station KTAC went dark for 20 hours. Cliff Erdahl, Tacoma’s director of utilities, called it the worst storm in 30 years.

Though the emergency system is far more sophisticated now, Buehner says a storm of similar scale could cause more damage today and perhaps more deaths. More people live in Washington now. Roads, homes and power lines extend further into remote areas.

Lucky

At Tacoma General Hospital, a doctor told Charley he was lucky. Over his left eye, the lid hung by a sliver of skin. The lion’s teeth had missed his right eye, leaving a long gash only a finger’s width from the eye. His forehead would hurt for a while, thanks to the front steps.

In the wild hours that followed, Pierce County sheriff’s deputies shot the lioness and its sibling near the Brammer home.

They were a matched set — a pair of 15-month-old cubs named Tammy and Sissy. Sissy was the one with teeth and claws. Before the attack on Charley, she had pounced on a woman named Helen Sullivan, who nearly lost her ear.

The wind had blown down the 12-foot fence that surrounded the lion pen and maddened the big cats. The Brammers’ neighbor, Uwe McCallister, kept them as pets. To this day, Ray Brammer, now 75, can’t say why.

The lions’ owners never apologized. Eventually, Sullivan sued them, and the Brammers joined in. Charley got about $1,500. Interest doubled the money to $3,000 by the time he was 18. He bought a car with it — a 1964 Ford Galaxy with plenty of goodies.

‘People look at you like this just BS’

Charles Brammer is 47 now, living in Graham with a couple of dogs and no cats — not that he minds them. The scars on his face are barely visible. He works as a plumber at the Puyallup Fair. A few years back, one of the fair’s animal exhibits included lions from a circus.

Charles looked at them but didn’t think much about it. He never actually saw the creature that attacked him 40 years ago. He figures that’s why lions have never bothered him.

He rarely tells the story these days. He’ll share it with people who remember the storm, or use it to shut down yarn-spinners who blow too much smoke. Other than that, he keeps it to himself.

“People look at you like this is just BS,” he says with a smile.