Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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Buried six paragraphs deep in an article about inclement weather in the April 24, 1896, issue of The Roanoke Daily Times is news about what appears to be the only tornado deaths in the recorded history of the Roanoke Valley.

A woman and two children were found amid the ruins of a demolished storehouse on Colorado Street in Salem, one of at least three buildings destroyed in what was likely a tornado, according to the newspaper and a tornado researcher.

All three victims were black, and in an era of segregation, their deaths were marginalized underneath news of soaked and wind-blown downtown Salem pedestrians.

Tornado researcher Tom Grazulis, in his historical book "Significant Tornadoes," states that eight people buried under the rubble were members of the same family. The Times did not carry that account, but did note: "It seemed a miracle that all were not killed, as the building was completely demolished and lying flat on the ground as though crashed on by some tremendous weight."

Since then, there have been no tornado deaths and very few confirmed tornadoes in the Roanoke Valley.

On April 4, 1974, a daybreak tornado skipped on a path from Salem across Roanoke's northwest and northeast quadrants and on to Bonsack. That tornado injured six people and caused almost $600,000 in damage.

In recent years, brief tornadoes caused relatively minor damage near Hollins on Aug. 5, 2003, and scattered across South Roanoke this past June 3.

Tornadoes are rare in the Roanoke Valley, but never say never.