40th Anniversary of the Super Outbreak

On April 3-4, 1974, a super outbreak of tornadoes hit from Indiana and Michigan to Alabama and Mississippi. A total of 148 tornadoes hit that area in about 18 hours. 300 died and more than 6,000 were injured...

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One victim, a young girl whose parents were separated at another hospital after a tornado destroyed their home, remains imprinted in Connolly's memory.

"A tragedy like that sticks with you, you have to experience it firsthand to realize what an impact a tornado has on the families involved," Connolly said. "I admired their resilience to get back to their normal lives and rebuild their community."

A total of 148 tornadoes touched down from Alabama to Ohio over the course of the outbreak, leveling entire towns. One of the most notorious tornadoes tore through Xenia, Ohio.

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The super outbreak of 1974.


40th Anniversary Photo Flashback: Reliving the 1974 Super Tornado Outbreak

The remarks have a lot of entries from survivors.

That was one Hell of a Night. My buddies and I went up on Monte Sano mountain and watched them go through Huntsville, AL. There are two ways to get up and down the mountain, we chose what is referred to as the back side, good choice as there was a tornado going up the "front" side.

I remember it like it was yesterday, I had just bought a 1973 Monte Carlo a couple of days earlier. Because Cincinnati (The city of Seven Hills and Ten Thousand valleys) is surrounded by hills on the western side, it is believed that storms travel up "Tornado Alley" and the system runs into the hills and is ramped up and over the central section of the city and the brunt of the storms seem to touch down to the northeast of the city. The storm hit Sayler Park on the west side of the hills, skipped over the area on the east side of Price Hill and landed 10 miles away in Reading and Blue Ash then continued north east to Xenia and beyond).

As I stood facing west in our 4 story apartment building, all my neighbors were running to the basement with blankets and provisions while I was there in the hall taking pictures of the funnel cloud. They asked, "Aren't you going to take shelter in the basement?" To which I responded, "If it's my time to go, it doesn't matter if I'm standing here or in the basement with the building on top of me."

I didn't have any broken glass but, the insurance company paid to have the dents removed; golf ball sized hail packs quite a punch.

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I had a super outbreak once. It took a ten-day course of amoxicillin to clear it up.

I remember seeing my uncle and aunt's house in Xenia, look like matchsticks were once a house stood. My uncle was in the hospital for 3 weeks and had surgery on his leg to set it from having the bone come through it, but my aunt only had a few cuts and bruises from it, they were the lucky ones. My uncle never could walk right after that for the rest of his life he walked with a limp and had a few more surgeries on it, but it never did heal right.

I remember it - the event was one of the things which really cemented my interest in severe weather.

The Akron Beacon Journal ran a picture of a funnel cloud over I-77. If it would have touched down the count would have gone up to 150. Thankfully it didn't.

The power of moving air or rotating columns and vortexes of air is amazing.