Bringing this up has a couple of purposes. To remind those of us who were around when this event happened. Also to let those who were not borne yet know what happened. One more thing, it looks like we may be in for possible storms during the same time period next week. No way of knowing if there will be any severe storms yet.

 

The Louisville National Weather Service office is busy organizing several exciting events to observe the 40th anniversary of the April 3, 1974 Super Outbreak. Southern Indiana and central Kentucky were at the epicenter of the massive outbreak of more than 148 tornadoes that tore across the eastern United States.

 

40th Anniversary of the April 3, 1974 Super Outbreak

I was a sophomore at Calloway County High School. remember the day quite well.

Burlington, KY.

 

5th grade. I remember it clearly.

Ten years before I was born, but it's a big part of my family history.

 

Two of my great grandparents on my mom's side lost their lives in those storms. They never really got the warning and didn't really have anywhere to go if they had. Lived in and around Meade County their entire lives and were living outside just outside Brandenburg when the storms came.

I've never heard of it until right now.

Lost a houseboat in it Down in Constance !!

Getting the word out about impending storms early as possible is why I do what I do. I do it for my family and now for job.

I've never heard of it until right now.

 

Same here.

Remember that time very well. Parents were out and I spent most of the night calming my younger sisters. Visiting the areas of greatest destruction was sobering.

 

The next day Hank Aaron tied Babe Ruth.

 

 

This is a map of the tornadoes covered by the Louisville NWS office.

We were at my grandparents' house in Madison, Ind., and I was but a toddler but recall that night well. Much fear in the adults' voices as they herded my cousin and I into the old bathtub for protection.

 

Their house was in the downtown area, just two blocks from the river. Up above us on the hill, crazy stuff was going on. I remember for years going by a subdivision that was just completed prior to that day; it lay in rubble for a good decade before they redeveloped the land. Sort of an unintended long-time reminder of the destruction.

 

The roof of the high school my father and his siblings attended -- perhaps 1,000 yards away from the subdivision I mentioned -- was ripped right off.

I remember it well, we spent most of the night at the neighbors with the kids sleeping in the floor and and the adults up listening to the radio and watching TV. A good friend of my mom and dad lost his mom and dad that night when their house was hit dead on by a twister. I remember driving around looking at the damage the next day and remember seeing 3 or 4 houses in a row destroyed and the very next building was a small church house that didn't have a shingle missing.

 

Neighbor late that afternoon swore he saw debris up in the jet stream. This was hours prior to our local tornadoes but after they had hit out west in the same storm system.

 

All I remember seeing was the sky was sea foam green late that afternoon.

I'm kinda blown away that there are some that hadn't at least heard of it. It happened 9 years before I was born and we have no family that was in the line of fire, but I'm pretty familiar with it.

 

I've listened to this recording more than once. This is from Xenia, OH, which was I believe the deadliest tornado that hit. It gets pretty scary loud towards the end. I couldn't imagine being anywhere near that.

 

Xenia Tornado Actual Audio (Audio link is mid page)

My mom is afraid of storms to this day because of these storms. She says she's never seen it so dark and so still since that day. She was in Frankfort, where the part of town called Jett was completely destroyed by a tornado.

 

 

This is a map of the tornadoes covered by the Louisville NWS office.

 

I knew the outbreak was bad from reading about it over the years, but I had no idea there were so many counties affected by F4+ twisters... That is unbelievable.