Tommy Crump, who worked for an electrical shop, was a collector of cameras and other gadgets and made use of Kodachrome slides, which at the time were expensive to develop and remained popular for decades.

Instead of the monochromatic bleakness usually associated with images of the tornado’s damage, a viewer of these photos sees the jarring cheerfulness of spring sunshine against the ravaged city square. In one photo, crowds wander through the rubble looking at the shorn-off upper story of the buildings, while one man hugs his son from behind. A red Coca-Cola cooler on the sidewalk pops out in the photo.

Other images show cars flattened by debris, while others show giant piles of rubble being cleared by trucks and cranes.

Damon Crump, born in 1964, grew up in Waco hearing stories of the tornado and learning about it in his seventh-grade Texas history class. He and his film business, Jackalope Entertainment, assisted with the four-part documentary “What About Waco,” which aired in 2017 and included an installment about the tornado.

Crump said he can only speculate why his father did not share his story about the tornado. But he said that as a father of two teen boys now, he has never thought to tell his own story about being in New York City after the 9/11 terror attacks.