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April 3, 1974 -- Unforgettable Day Of Wind! 148 Tornadoes!
I'm sure anyone who lived in the midwestern United States in early April of 1974 can easily recall the horrific day of Wednesday, April 3, 1974, a day when 148 tornadoes swept across 13 U.S. states in the midwest and south, claiming more than 300 lives, injuring another 5,400 people, and causing massive amounts of property damage. It was the single worst outbreak of twisters ever in North America. <
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>This VHS video program, via The History Channel and A&E Home Video, probes that "Super Outbreak" of deadly tornadoes, providing ample footage of various twisters during the rampage, plus a close look at the damage left in their wake. Program length = approximately 50 minutes. <
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>Just imagine how much home "camcorder" footage would exist if such a huge tornado outbreak were to occur today. We'd probably have so much footage of the 148 twisters, the TV stations might have to leave some on the cutting room floor. But in 1974, there were no video camcorders; so all the footage taken of the storms came from either private citizens using their home movie (film) cameras, or via TV stations, who were able to film (or tape) some twisters with the television station's commercial equipment. In either case, much of this original 1974 footage is quite remarkable, and scary (knowing the death and destruction that these storms were soon to cause). <
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>Many local weather agencies were so swamped with warnings that it became nearly impossible to keep up with them all. A weatherman's nightmare to say the least. <
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>From Decatur, Illinois ... to Plum Tree, Indiana ... to Xenia, Ohio ... to Nashville, Tennessee ... to Louisville, Kentucky ... to Shady Spring, West Virginia ... to Roanoke, Virginia ... all of these communities (and tons of others) were hit by at least one twister on April 3rd. <
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>The Xenia, Ohio, storm turned out to be the most deadly of the tornadoes to strike that day. The Xenia storm killed 33 people, while injuring 1,150 more. Approximately half the town was either completely destroyed or badly damaged by the wrath of the incredible "F5" twister. (F5 being the most powerful and potentially destructive on the "Fujita" scale of measuring tornadoes.) <
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>The Xenia mega-twister stayed on the ground for 32 miles. That wasn't the "record high" for "consecutive length on the ground" that April day, however. A twister that hit Monticello, Indiana, was stuck to the ground for an incredible 121 miles before dissipating. That "F4" tornado killed 19 and injured 362 others. <
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>The part I remember most about April 1974 is visiting the stricken town of Xenia, Ohio, a couple of weeks following the tornado. I recall seeing virtually nothing but devastation on every street we drove down. From local restaurants without their roofs, to houses practically ripped from their foundations. A sad sight indeed. <
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>And as if the '74 storm wasn't bad enough, Xenia was, amazingly, struck a second time by a deadly twister, some years later. On September 20, 2000, one person was killed and 60 homes totally destroyed by yet another wicked twister that swept through the small town of Xenia. Talk about lightning striking twice. <
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>There's an interesting Internet website called "April 3, 1974" (+ ".com" and minus the comma). That site includes some stunning photographs of many of the deadly twisters that devastated the landscape that spring day. That website also contains a page of verbatim text from the remarkable Live reports that were heard on radio station WHAS in Louisville, Kentucky, when helicopter traffic reporter Dick Gilbert tracked the F4 tornado that hit Louisville, reporting Live over WHAS radio what he was witnessing. <
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>This video is probably too difficult a program to watch for some people who were touched by that tragic day's events. But it provides an excellent and pulse-pounding record of one amazing day of bad weather in 1974.