I Looked Up and There Was the Sky: The 2021 Mullica Hill Tornado by Melissa Ziobro
University Professor and oral historian Melissa Ziobro gives a retrospective of the devastating EF-3 tornado that swept through Mullica Hill and surrounding areas in September of 2021. How widespread was the destruction? What was it like to be in the eye of the storm? How did the community come together to rebuild? And, importantly, what lessons can we learn from this unprecedented event? This talk draws heavily from contemporary news coverage and interviews with 32 community members conducted by Ziobro for the Harrison Township Historical Society from February - June 2022.
Melissa Ziobro began her career as a Command Historian for the US Army Communications-Electronics Command at Fort Monmouth, NJ. She is currently the Specialist Professor of Public History at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, NJ, where she teaches a wide variety of classes and regularly partners with local humanities organizations on public history projects. The Harrison Township Historical Society's tornado project, discussed in this talk, earned them the American Association of State and Local History's 2023 Albert B. Corey Award.
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Please enjoy the video of Melissa Ziobro's presentation below.