Sadly our 5th grade teacher in Milltown was a hysterical wreck because her child got a dart in her eye that morning (!!!) and her husband was outside working on power lines. She went home 1/2 a day early and the Principal was watching us and made us stay under our desks while the rest of the entire school ran over to the windows to get a view south that everyone said was a once in a lifetime sight.
7 minutes later the tornado hit Depauw In. killing 6, then wiped Daisy Hill Indiana off the map—literally blew the tiny town away. The same thunderstorm cell then traveled into Ohio and created a new twister that almost deleted Xenia destroying 5o% of the town.
Texas remained generally clear of the really bad stuff. I was in the 5th grade in ‘74 and was blissfully unaware of the weather horror in other parts of the country, as far as I remember.
Ah, the innocent oblivion of youth.
50 year anniversary of the 1974 Tornado Super Outbreak...an excellent analysis...
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4228833/posts
The 40min video in that thread is excellent and well worth watching. Good comments on the thread as well.
I was living near the hospital at Fort Knox, remember a lot of Huey medevac runs. Might have been the closest hospital to Brandenburg KY, which took a big hit with a lot of casualties.
I brought it up at church last night. About 50 - 60 people spent the night in our church basement near Cullmn, AL. One family in our church lost their home that night. Two members of that family were at church last night.
The storm that hit Cullman first hit Guin, AL, about 80 miles to the SW of us. It just leveled that poor little town.
I remember that day/ night very well, 50 years later.
As the British army was burning down Washington in the war of 1812 , the city was plagued by tornados. Whoever heard of tornadoes in DC?
I remember it. It was a great, warm day in April. Unseasonably warm. I took my dog’s puppies outside to play all afternoon. It was their first day out together (2+ month old black labs).
We were traveling back from Washington DC in our motorhome and stopped for the night just outside of Xena on that night.
I was in Korea when these tornados hit Huntsville Al.
I was expecting orders to return to the states.
At company morning formation, the 1st Sgt read off those receiving orders and their future assignments.
When he came to my name he said:
“Good news Lieutenant and bad news too”.
“Good news Lieutenant, you’re going to Huntsville”.
“Bad news Lieutenant a tornado blew Huntsville away last night”.
I remember hearing my first tornado that afternoon, we lived in Decatur Alabama.
We shouldn’t overlook the tornado outbreak of 27 April 2011.
This outbreak was one of the largest tornado outbreaks in the U.S. to this day. The whole event spanned from April 25 until the 28th, but April 27th was the peak.
Sixty-two tornadoes tracked across Alabama over an 18-hour period, carving out a damage path of more than 1,200 miles. At least 240 people died, and even more were injured.
Whole communities were destroyed. Some areas were hit more than once.
April 27, 2011, warnings
Alabama was hit with 62 tornadoes on April 27, 2011. Here are the warnings issued by the National Weather Service that day. At least 240 people were killed in Alabama.
Alabama was hit the hardest, according to NOAA. There were not one but two EF-5 monster tornadoes — on one day.
The first was the Hackleburg tornado that had winds estimated at 210 mph. It had a path of devastation that was more than 132 miles long. Seventy-two people died in that storm, and 145 were injured.
The second had winds nearly as high, estimated at more than 200 mph, according to the National Weather Service. That storm is blamed for the deaths of 25 people in DeKalb County.
There were also a staggering seven — seven — EF-4s on that day, all of which formed within about five and a half hours.
A 1-2-3 PUNCH
The April 27, 2011, outbreak came in three destructive waves that altogether lasted about 18 hours.
The first tornado touched down in Alabama at 4:01 a.m. on April 27. The last tornado of the day dissipated at 9:58 p.m.
LONG-TRACK TORNADOES
April 27, 2011, tornado tracks
Here are some of the tornado tracks from April 27, 2011. The longest track is No. 39 on the map and stretched for 123 miles.
The tornadoes of April 27 did not come and go but were of the dreaded long-track variety. Here are some of the longer tracks:
123 miles: EF-4, Cordova. Pickens, Tuscaloosa, Fayette, Cullman, Walker, Blount and Marshall counties. 13 deaths, 54 injuries.
118.63 miles: EF-5, Hackleburg. Marion, Franklin, Lawrence, Morgan, Limestone and Madison counties. 72 deaths, 145 injuries.
80.68 miles: EF-4, Tuscaloosa-Birmingham. Tuscaloosa, Jefferson counties, 65 deaths, 1,500 injuries.
72.13 miles: EF-3, Sawyerville-Eoline. Greene, Hale and Bibb counties, 7 deaths, 50 injuries.
71.30 miles: EF-4, Argo-Shoal Creek. Jefferson, St. Clair, Calhoun, Etowah and Cherokee counties. 22 deaths, 81 injuries.
On April 3, 1974, a violent F5 tornado hit Xenia, Ohio, without warning, killing 34 people, injuring over a thousand, and damaging over 3400 homes, 9 schools, 9 churches, and 159 businesses123. The tornado remains among the top 10 costliest U.S. tornadoes on record, with approximately $250 million in damages in 1974.
In the following months, careful analysis of all the damage led Dr. Fujita and other experts to determine that the Xenia tornado was in fact the worst of all the 148 Super Outbreak tornadoes.
April 3, 1964 and April 10, 1979 are the anniversaries of F-5’s rolling through Wichita Falls, Texas.