Wow! Video has come a long way in 50 years!
My aunt was a school teacher in Xenia then. She told me about that day and it was pretty scary.
I’ll take riding out a hurricane over a tornado any day.
This tornado was the weather nightmare of my childhood. Wasn’t there, but the videos were ubiquitous.
I’m assuming the multi-vortex part is the several smaller “spinners” appearing as the whole damn thing approaches the earf.
I would like to experience a large tornado in a storm cellar with a plexiglass roof!
Imagine the media bed-wetting over “climate change” if that happened today...OMG
These little sub-vortices are no different.
It was extremely violent even for an F5
4:40pm April 3, 1974, the worst of the worst happened
5:00pm April 3, 1974, the start of Xenia’s finest hours, days, week & months.
I am proud to say, I not only was there but in my own very small way helped that little farm town recover.
My husband and I lived in Centerville, OH at the time and we had a 3 month old baby. My husband was closer to the tornado on his job than I was - had lots and lots of rain and hail and I stood at a window and watched it all develop.
Moved there from CA and had no experience whatsoever with that kind of weather. Clueless! We did have lots of tornado warnings on TV for a couple of days. Had a big walk in bedroom closet and never thought to take refuge in there with the baby. Lived in a large brick apartment building and I figured it was a pretty safe building until I saw piles of bricks that used to be homes and apartments and office buildings.
Moved back to CA, went through some rattling and shaking there over the years and then retired to GA where hurricanes and tornadoes are commonplace..Not as clueless anymore!!!
I lived in “West-Central Ohio” in 1974. Didn’t see the tornado, did see the aftermath. It was devastating. We may not have taken the tornado sirens entirely seriously before; we absolutely did after.
Scary! And that kid had big ones.
All my life, off and on, I’ve had a reoccurring nightmare about being outside, and trying to get away from a large outbreak of like 3-6 tornadoes all coming from the same area.
And very close.
Close enough to blow people off the ground.
Ugh.
Later.
Better video: https://youtu.be/LRXhI-8rRqI
The headline made me think of Xena, Warrior Princess. A hottie in her day!