As if caught in an endless kluge, the Thomas family threads the old Colesville Pike (New Hampshire Avenue) during the dreadful blizzard of February 1899. Lacking long-range weather forecasts, Sandy Springers had welcomed the first foot of snow: "sleigh bells jingled merrily through the falling flakes," noted the Annals. Then came ten more days of relentless snow, wind, and arctic cold that buried fences and "struck the oldest inhabitants speechless." Mountainous drifts lingered on the landscape until April 15.

It struck on a May evening of 1929--a vicious tornado that splintered the large house and barn of John William Benson on Zion Road. The twister destroyed the houses and barns of Charles Haight on Howard Chapel Road, smashed into William Royer's farm, and lifted the upper floors of the Burroughs home at present Camp Waradaca without harming the terrified family below. By that time it had claimed one life. It touched down again on the Childs' home at the corner of Route 108 and Muncaster Road. Destroying the house, it killed a young sister and brother and their grandmother. For months afterward northern Sandy Spring was strewn with uprooted trees and the boards and tin of shattered buildings.