[7] Consequently, the storms increased in intensity and coverage as they moved into Illinois, Indiana, and northern Kentucky, producing several tornadoes, including the first F5 tornado of the day, at 19:20 UTC, near Depauw, Indiana. A caboose was knocked off the tracks into a field. Ohio's tornado history and what to do if you're caught in a twister Cindy Gorth's aunt, Carol Forste, lived in Moscow on Elizabeth Street near the river. The next occurrence of two F5 tornadoes hitting the same state on the same day happened in March 1990 in Kansas, and then in both Mississippi and Alabama on April 27, 2011. Consequently, CAPE levels in the region rose to 1,000 J/kg. It was the second-largest tornado outbreak on record for a single 24-hour period and was also the most violent outbreak recorded with 30 F4/F5 tornadoes confirmed. However, the 46.5 miles (74.8km) section of the original path, from Decatur to Hytop, was determined later to be from the F3 tornado listed below. Her husband and two other sons were severely injured,but survived. ** The video in the player above details information regarding the deadly tornado in a 2020 newscast ** XENIA, Ohio (WDTN) On Wednesday, April 3, 1974, a dangerous tornado struck the Miami . The funnel cloud tore through sections of Hartwell, Arlington Heights, Reading, Amberley Village, Deer Park, Silverton, Madeira, Indian Hill and Terrace Park, according to storm data. [6] Many businesses were also heavily damaged, and numerous trees and power lines were downed throughout the city. Winds topped 418 kilometers (260 miles) an hour. For months afterwards, portions of classified documents were being returned by farmers in Tennessee and Alabama. [71] The West Virginia State Department of Highways provided two water trucks. Xenia tornado 49 years later - The Xenia Gazette The tornado exhibited a multiple-vortex structure, which was described as a "pair of funnels coming together". [6][7], Meanwhile, by 00:00 UTC the southern half of the first convective band became indistinguishable from new convection that had formed farther south over Alabama and Tennessee in connection with convective band two. NWS surveyors noted that a pickup truck in this area was carried a half block over the roofs of five homes before being smashed to the ground. Overall damage according to the NOAA was estimated at US$250 million with US$100 million damage in Monticello alone. Xenia tornado: Photos of the damage from the 1974 storm - dayton-daily-news The Guin Tornado traveled over 79.5 miles (127.9km), from the town of Vernon, Alabama, to just south of the small town of Basham, before lifting just after 10:30pm CDT. The storm came with no warning from the National Weather Service, but the Emergency Operating Center issued a tornado warning. A small pickup truck on I-71 was pickedup and dropped upside-down on the concrete barrier in the middle of the highway. The Burger Chef sign was a mangled mess. "We're driving down the roads. [6][54] The same supercell then re-strengthened and produced a new tornado just south of the town of Decatur. But the cataclysmic storm system wasn't done. It flattened the western part of Xenia. Fifty-one years ago, on Aug. 9, 1969, a tornado struck near Galbraith and Reading roads in Reading, leaving four dead and more than 200 injured. Most of the fatalities occurred in and around the Tanner area. how the Enhanced Fujita Scale, adopted in 2007, measures tornadoes. The tornado caused an estimated $100 million in damage in Xenia's Greene County. A large floating restaurant barge at this location was lifted, ripped from its moorings, and flipped by the tornado. [25][37] It began shortly before 4:30pm CDT or 5:30pm EDT in southeastern Indiana in Ohio County north of Rising Sun near the Ohio River. [50] The tornado then continued into Madison County and struck the Capshaw and Harvest areas. In that pre-FEMA era, help came from the Ohio National Guard, Red Cross, and regional aid workers. Questions? . At the time the damage was estimated at $100 million, which would be closer to a half billion or more in todays dollars. Two more deaths were reported in Franklin County, Indiana. Huntsville was affected shortly before 11:00 pm EDT by a strong F3 tornado produced by the same thunderstorm that produced the Guin tornado. The tornado quickly became violent as it moved into Meade County, producing F4 damage as it passed north of Irvington, sweeping away numerous homes in this rural area. Xenia tornado timeline: How the deadly 1974 twister tore through the city That included an F5 with 300-mph winds that practically destroyed the nearby town of Xenia, Ohio, and killed 33 people and injured 1,150 there. There were seven F5 tornadoes[10] and 23 F4 tornadoes. They were killed. Damage at the intersection of Drake Avenue and Memorial Parkway in Huntsville. It poured down on top of us.. Past Harvest, the tornado abruptly dissipated northeast of town, having a peak width of 500 yards. When the storm reached central Xenia at 4:40pm, apartment buildings, homes, businesses, churches, and schools including Xenia High School were destroyed. Laurie Arshonsky and her husband Stephen were asleep when a tornado hit their Montgomery Woods home before dawn in 1999. He told them to get under the couch - just in time. In addition to the direct fatalities, two Ohio Air National Guardsmen deployed for disaster assistance were killed on April 17 when a fire swept through their temporary barracks in a furniture store. Nick is a Riverside native and has been a journalist in the Dayton area for more than 20 years. [7], Michigan was not hit as hard as neighboring states or Windsor, with only one deadly tornado that hit near Coldwater and Hillsdale, killing people in mobile homes; however, thunderstorm downpours caused flash floods, and north of the warm front in the Upper Peninsula, heavy snowfall was reported. [8], While violent tornado activity increased over the warm sector, a third band of convection developed at about 16:00 UTC and extended from near St. Louis into west-central Illinois. Cathrine Wilson recalls that someone told her mother a bad storm was coming. A day after the 1974 tornadoes, Opening Day in Cincinnati went on as scheduled even though the sight of so much destruction in person or on TV and so many deaths and injuries left many fans in a somber mood. 75K views 3 years ago The deadliest tornado of the April 3-4 Super Outbreak! "It was pure black. Tanner was hit by yet another EF5 tornado during the 2011 Super Outbreak. It is uncertain which tornado was the strongest, as most tornadoes do not have their winds measured. And Mays, coping with the uncertainties of the current health crisis points out that hindsight will always be 20/20. More than 100 were injured. 2. "It lasted about a minute and then I looked and everything was gone the roof, the walls, everything. Flash floods were considered a major risk in the region's mountainous terrain. HUD arrived to organize housing, and President Nixon made an unannounced visit just days after the tragedy. gHWO The tornado finally dissipated northeast of Cullman a short time later. [15], Soon after the Depauw tornado lifted, the Hanover/Madison F4 tornado formed near Henryville and traveled through Jefferson County and leveled many structures in the small towns of Hanover and Madison. 6. At 5:30 p.m. another F5 touched down near Rising Sun, Indiana, passed into Northern Kentucky and knocked out power at the National Weather Service (NWS) station at CVG. The Drake Motel on Reading Road sustained heavydamagewith crumbled walls and shattered windows. Several F2 and F3 tornadoes had struck portions of the Ohio Valley and the South in a separate, earlier outbreak on April 1 and 2, which included three killer tornadoes in Kentucky, Alabama, and Tennessee. Based upon real-time satellite imagery and model data, differential positive vorticity advection coincided with the left exit region of an upper-level jet streak that reached wind speeds of up to 130kn (150mph) (66.9m/s (241km/h)), thereby enhancing thunderstorm growth. They were thrown 30 yards almost to the curb. Most of the small town of Tanner, west of Huntsville in Limestone County, was destroyed when two F5 tornadoes struck the community 30 minutes apart. The mid-latitude low-pressure center over Kansas continued to deepen to 980mb (28.94inHg), and wind speeds at the 850-mb level increased to 50kn (58mph) (25.7m/s (93km/h)) over portions of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. At one point forecasters in Indiana, frustrated because they could not keep up with all of the simultaneous tornado activity, put the entire state of Indiana under a blanket tornado warning. Remains of a house that was completely swept away in Brandenburg, with heavily debarked trees and shrubbery in the foreground. This tornado produced the longest damage path recorded during the 1974 Super Outbreak, on a southwest to northeast path that nearly crossed the entire state of Indiana. [22] Central State University also sustained considerable damage, and a water tower there was toppled. NBC Xenia, Ohio Tornado Documentary, 1974 - YouTube Five hundred buildings were destroyed, with nearly four hundred other buildings severely damaged. The worst tornado was an F5 that struck portions of Southeastern Ohio from Wheelersburg to Gallipolis, just north of the Ohio- Kentucky state line, killing seven people and injuring at least 93. Areas near Palmyra and Borden were also heavily affected by the tornado. All NOAA, Hazards Pete Rose knocked in the tying run in the bottom of the ninth and scored the winning run in the 11th, and baseball, as Terrence Mann would say, would remind us of all that once was good, and that could be again. He is a graduate of Stebbins High School who earned a bachelors degree from Ohio University and its E.W. In Madison alone, where seven of the fatalities took place, about 300 homes were destroyed. [30] Five others were killed in White County, six in Fulton County and one in Kosciusko County. The Guin tornado was originally believed by Fujita to have had a 132 miles (212km) long path, that went all the way from Vernon, to the small town of Hytop, just a few miles south of the Tennessee state line. From the archives: Deadly tornado struck Xenia and Cincinnati 46 years ago [44] A WHAS-TV cameraman also filmed the tornado when it passed just east of the Central Business District of Louisville. Damage in Delhi was rated as high as F4. [55], While rescue efforts were underway to look for people under the destroyed structures, few were aware that another violent tornado would strike the area. It would be rebuilt again by January 1970. An F3 tornado hit Cedarville May 14, 2014, tossing silos, lifting cars, badly damaging barns and homes, and destroying one home completely. A collection of dramatic photographs from the Dayton Daily News archive documents the ruin a tornado left in Xenia on April 3, 1974. Their neighbors were thrown from their home, too. [11] The first F5 tornado of the day struck the city of Depauw, Indiana, at 3:20pm EDT. Published photographs of this storm reveal a very wide debris cloud and wall cloud structure, with no visible condensation funnel at times. The tornado then went on to tear through the west side of Rochester, where businesses were destroyed and homes were completely leveled and swept away. The tornado tore directly through downtown Jasper at 6:57 PM, resulting in severe damage and at least 100 injuries. A small tornado, spotted in the field along Fairground Road, struck Xenia at 9:35 p.m. April 25, 1989. The Lessons We Learnt from Xenia Tornado - GradesFixer Ten tornadoes touched down in the Tri-State on the day before Reds Opening Day, starting around 4 p.m. and continuing into the night. Aftermath Students in the school, practicing for a play, took cover in the main hallway seconds before the tornado dropped a school bus onto the stage where they had been practicing and extensively damaged the school building. +Cincinnati Magazine looks back to see how Cincinnatians of the past made it through their dark days and to the leaders of todays efforts to move forward. [6], Severe thunderstorms on April4 brought 1 to 3in (2.5 to 7.6cm) of rain to tornado-stricken areas of northwest Georgia. [42] It was considered the most-photographed tornado of the outbreak. Nearly half of the town's population of 25,000 were left homeless. The outbreak caused roughly $843 million USD (~equivalent to $4.58 billion in 2019) in damage, with more than $600 million (~equivalent to $3.3 billion in 2019) occurring in the United States. [34] A news photographer reported that the tornado "left no grass" as it crossed KY 79 in this area, and canceled checks from near Irvington were later found in Ohio. Most of the damage and injuries occurred from Hartwell to Reading. A massive re-planting effort was undertaken by the community in the aftermath of the tornado. A total of 319 were killed in 148 tornadoes from April 3 through April 4 and 5,484 were injured. The worst and most widespread damage came on April 3, 1974, during the country's deadliest Super Tornado Outbreak. [54] The tornado then became extremely violent as it approached and entered Guin, with multiple areas of F5 damage noted in and around town. [69] The National Guard provided four-wheel drive vehicles for search and rescue efforts. >> PHOTOS: The 1974 Xenia tornado The Montgomery/Blue Ash tornado tore through Ohio on April 9, 1999. The memorial in downtown Xenia lists 34 deaths, in honor of the two Guardsmen. That included an F5 with 300-mph winds that practically destroyed the nearby town of Xenia, Ohio, and killed 33 people and injured 1,150 there. The F5 category tornado brought winds up to 250 miles an hour, bulldozing a half-mile-wide swath through Xenia. There were 61 tornadoes in . [57] The death toll from the two tornadoes was over 45 and over 400 were injured. F5 damage was observed near the community of Depauw, where numerous farms were leveled. Train cars near the plant blown off the tracks and thrown into the building. Service centers were opened at two National Guard Armories, one in Dalton and the other in Calhoun, as well as a church in Dawsonville. And historically, these devastating tornadoes have happened once a decade since the 1970s," said WCPO Chief Meteorologist Steve Raleigh, adding this warning: WATCH long-time WCPO reporter Tom McKee's recollection of the 1974 tornadoes: There have been eight official tornado days here since 1968 and that's not counting a deadly storm in 1986 that caused severe damage in Northern Kentucky to the airport, Fort Thomas, Covington and Newport. The 1974 F5 wasnt the only twister to hit Xenia even though its wrath is unmatched. She served as Xenia mayor from 2010 to 2017 and agrees that her community is resilient, but she cautions that a disaster doesnt wipe out divisions. The biggest tornado crossed the Ohio River and laid waste to Sayler Park, then proceeded into Mack and Bridgetown, ripping off the roofs of Our Lady of Visitation and Springmyer schools and destroying scores of homes in those residential areas before spreading its damage north to Roselawn, Elmwood Place and Sharonville. Many trees and power lines were downed leaving more than 7,000 people without electricity. A small tornado, spotted in the field along Fairground Road, struck Xenia at 9:35 p.m. April 25, 1989. [3] and became very large as it approached town. Possibly one of the most powerful tornadoes to ever hit Ohio happened in Xenia in 1974. At one point, the National Weather Service was tracking five funnel clouds on its local radar at the airport.

. The roof was sheared off of Lakeshore Drive Apartments on Galbraith Road. 45 years ago, a heinous F5 tornado tore through this town and changed it forever By Matthew Cappucci April 3, 2019 at 12:02 p.m. EDT Damage in Xenia, Ohio, following an F5 tornado on April. [8] This first convective band moved rapidly northeast, at times reaching speeds of about 60kn (69mph) (30.9m/s (111km/h)). These factors allowed the northern part of the MCS to accelerate due to efficient ducting, while the southern part slowed as the boundary layer warmed and moistened. As thunderstorms moved into the warmer, moister air mass over eastern Illinois and Indiana, they produced longer-lived tornadoesone of which began near Otterbein and ended near Valentine in Indiana, a distance of 121 miles (195km). A funnel cloud formed west of the city; the storm hit shortly before 7:30 p.m, following a parallel path just north of the 1974 tornado path. Notably, it would prompt the creation of a disaster coordinating agency. There were 18 hours of nearly continuous tornado activity that ended in Caldwell County, North Carolina, at about 7:00am on April 4. Numerous buildings and storefronts were heavily damaged in downtown Jasper, and many streets were blocked with trees and power lines. "The house was crashing in and the winds were picking me off the bed and I believed I was about to die," she said. The F2 tornado spared lives this time but left reportedly $1.22 million of damage to clean up. [55], In total, the storm took three lives, but injured one hundred and fifty residents of Jasper or Cullman. I tried to catch the doors which were moving out. When it crossed the river and blasted into Sayler Park, virtually all communication was shut down. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Xenias graduation ceremony at the Nutter Center in May 2018 was interrupted by a tornado warning. There were recorded F2/F3 damages left throughout the area. Thirty-one people have died locally in tornadoes and severe storms since 1968. 1:25. Reportedly, only one of the citys five sirens sounded due to power outages. Per the SPC, it continues to be in the top 10 of costliest tornadoes on record. The outbreak extensively damaged approximately 900sqmi (2,331km2) along a total combined path length of 2,600mi (4,184km). Xenias nightmare landscape has long been cleaned up, but Mays notes that there are still reminders of the struggle to revive the city. Then-Governor Wendell Ford commended the station's personnel for their service to the community in the time of crisis, and Dick Gilbert later received a special commendation from then-President Richard Nixon for his tracking of the tornado from his helicopter.[45]. A bathtub from one residence was found deeply embedded into the ground. The storms killed 307, injured 5,454, and destroyed around 1,400 buildings. [7] However, thunderstorm activity, for the moment, remained mostly elevated in nature. [6] It formed at around 8:50pm CDT near the Mississippi-Alabama border, north of the town of Vernon, striking the Monterey Trailer Park, resulting in major damage at that location. [17] The tornado had a peak width of 7001,760 yards (6401,610m). 9. Been googling a bit, and wondered about some of the other ones. It first hit the Redstone Arsenal, damaging or destroying numerous buildings at that location. Here, the tornado reached F5 intensity as it slammed into Sayler Park. The most damaging and deadly touched down in Xenia, Ohio, where the F5 tornado leveled half of the town in just nine minutes. Residential areas in Guin suffered total devastation, with many homes swept completely away and scattered across fields. 36 people perished in the storm, thousands more were injured and left homeless. A total of 23 people were killed in Guin.[54][63]. [23][24][25] About 1,400 buildings (roughly half of the town) were heavily damaged or destroyed. Survivors and Guard members remember deadly Xenia tornado on 45th It killed 6 and injured 86 others along its 65-mile path, leveling and sweeping away homes in Depauw and Daisy Hill. At the same time, the forward-propagating MCS spread into the Tennessee and Ohio valleys, where it evolved into the first of three main convection bands that produced tornadoes. When the tornado struck on April 3, 1974, many of the Brandenburg residents at that time had also experienced a major flood of the Ohio River that affected the area in 1937 as well as numerous other communities along the river, including Louisville and Paducah. Exiting Brandenburg, the tornado crossed into Indiana producing F4 damage there before dissipating. A total of 92 homes and 40 businesses were destroyed and 194 homes suffered major damage, officials said. [55] The tornado then reached Monte Sano Mountain, which has an elevation of 1,640 feet (500m), where additional homes were torn apart. Multiple locations were found. She received head injuries and died the next day. Scripps School of Journalism. Fifty-one years ago, on Aug. 9, 1969, a tornado struck near Galbraith and Reading roads in Reading, leaving four dead and more than 200 injured. Photograph courtesy of United States Air Force, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. In 1974, a young Xenia, Ohio, resident sweeps the slab of a house that was destroyed in a tornado that struck the town April 3. As the storm system moved east where daytime heating had made the air more unstable, the tornadoes grew more intense. Bridgecreek 1999. Per Thomas Grazulis in Significant Tornadoes, "This was the most publicized tornado of the day and perhaps the most well-studied tornado in history, from a wind . [38] The first area of town hit was the Morehead Marina, where numerous boats were thrown and destroyed. On Sunday morning, 700 members of the Ohio National Guard arrived to help cleanup and rescue efforts. EF-5 tornado in Wichita Falls TX. The tornado continued northeast and struck the south sides of Atwood and Leesburg, with additional severe damage occurring at both locations. But rebuilding was a tangible goal, and Xenia rebuilt. Sorry, the location you searched for was not found. There were 29 tornadoes in Ohio on July 12, 1992, and 19 on Nov. 10, 2002, the most of any days since 1950. [8] In the wake of the MCS, backing low-level winds, rapid diurnal destabilization, and perhaps cool, mid-level advection had occurred over the warm sector, weakening the convective inhibition (CINH) layer, and favorable wind profiles bolstered helicity to over 230 m2/sa combination of factors conducive to tornadogenesis. 1966-10-9 - F2 Tornado: 5.4 mi. >> MIAMI VALLEY TORNADOES: What you need to know now. Ground scouring occurred in this area, as reddish soil was dug up and plastered against trees. It continues to be in the top 10 of costliest tornadoes on record. Heard on All Things Considered. The fierce 100-123 mile per hour winds damaged 106 houses and 10 businesses, leaving many without power. Please select one of the following: Local KILN Standard Radar (low bandwidth), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Eight tornadoes touched down, including the longest-tracked single tornado of the outbreak: the 121mi (195km) F4 Monticello tornado. This was the first and only time in U.S. history that an entire state was under a tornado warning.[13]. Due to significant moisture advection, destabilization rapidly proceeded apace; the warm front near the Gulf Coast dissipated and then redeveloped northward over the Ohio River valley. Aaron obliged in the first inning and the crowd and the city came back to life. Xenia, Ohio has a long history of severe weather, namely tornadoes. ", The same system that spawned the Xenia tornado first came through Greater Cincinnati. More than 50 years ago, 'forgotten' tornado struck Cincinnati She wasnt even born when the 1974 tornado hit, but she was around for the 2000 storm that killed one person, and now shes seen her neighbors respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. A large festival tent at St. GertrudeChurch on Miami Avenue at Shawnee Run Road in Madeira wasblown down, temporarily trapping 100 people inside. It then traveled through Boone County, Kentucky, producing F4 damage in the Taylorsport area before crossing the Ohio River a second time into Ohio.