April 1967 is a date that will always be a piece of Madera’s recorded history. Heavy spring rains in that year created such havoc that they prompted state legislators to call for the area to be designated a disaster area. Damage in the millions of dollars hit Madera County farmers, and 10,000 acres of farmland lay under water. Then, as if to add insult to injury, a tornado struck the area.
Ernest Sagouspe was standing in his doorway at 4:45 on Friday afternoon, April 21, 1967. He was talking with a Fuller Brush salesman when the visitor asked if he might step inside because a tornado was coming that way. Sagouspe looked out in time to see his garbage can flying 500 feet in the air. Later he found it one-quarter of a mile from his house.
The slow-moving twister whirled northwest for more than an hour, collapsing a farm worker’s house, side-swiping a school, twisting trees off their trunks, ripping off a roof, and driving a 2 by 4 board three feet into the ground.