On Monday, June 8, 1953, an exceptionally large and violent tornado struck the north side of Flint, Michigan and the northern suburb of Beecher, causing catastrophic damage and hundreds of casualties.

Rated as an F5 on the Fujita Scale, the tornado touched down in Genesee County, Michigan, at 8:30 p.m. EST (01:30 UTC) and continued on a 18.6-mile-path (29.9 km), causing 116 fatalities, 844 injuries and an estimated $19 million (1953 USD) in damage.

Just prior to the tornado touching down eyewitness accounts recalled that an approaching thunderstorm with several intense lightning strikes turned the northwest sky a dark "black-yellow-green" color.

[2] Surface map analysis showed a frontal system associated with a strong low pressure moving west across lower Michigan.

[8][10] After leaving Beecher the tornado took an east-northeast path, following just south of the Flint River where it ravaged farms, causing more casualties and destruction near the rural communities of Genesee, Richfield Center and Columbiaville.

That tornado reached F4 wind speeds and continued east through rural farm lands in Lapeer and St. Clair Counties causing more injuries and damage before moving out over Lake Huron.

Gatica, a worker at General Motors, had been at work when the tornado struck, while his small home was directly in the path of the storm.

[2] Some accounts recalled employees of Flint's automobile industry leaving factories to head to the site to discover whether or not their families had survived.

[2] It was debated in the U.S. Congress at the time whether recent atomic bomb testing in the upper atmosphere had caused tornadoes, including this one.