48th Anniversary of the 1974 Super Outbreak

[nWo]

The “Super Outbreak of April 3-4, 1974” occurred across portions of the Midwest, Lower Mississippi Valley, and Southeast.  In what was the worst tornado outbreak of the 20th century, there were 148 tornadoes over the course of just 18 hours, over half of which were classified as significant/strong at F2 strength or higher.

Many comparisons have been made between this outbreak and the April 25-28, 2011 outbreak which featured 358 tornadoes.  Although the more recent outbreak featured many more tornadoes, they occurred over a longer time period in an age of better tornado detection, and the worst was confined to a smaller area compared to April 3-4, 1974.

https://www.ustornadoes.com/2013/04/03/looking-back-at-the-april-3-4-1974-super-outbreak/

[TheDeuce]

My mom still says she’s never seen the sky as black as it was that day. She was in Frankfort. 

[The Raven]

I was 22 months old.  My mom had just brought me home from daycare after work.  Dad was finishing up med school at UofL.   As I've been told, she handed me to the maintenance man who started down to the basement of the building, she grabbed a couple, keep the kid quiet bottles and toys and was right behind us.

[Jumper_Dad]

My uncle lost his mom and dad that night, his brother lost his home and his nephew lost his. His nephew's baby was found alive in the woods with a piece of barn roof tin laying over him protecting him from the rain all night.

One tornado hit several houses in a row, then skipped a little country church before continuing and taking out houses just past the church.

I was in 2nd grade when it happened and we drove out the next day to one of the worst hit areas. It was just unbelievable the damage, even as a little kid I knew this was worse than any other storm I'd ever seen. My parents knew pretty much every one in that community that was hit that night.

For years after this until we moved into a house with a basement my mom would freak out when a bad storm blew in and we'd go to the neighbors and ride the storm out.

[PP1]

Been living in Ky since 1986. I've never heard of this before. How far North into KY did it reach?

[TheDeuce]

47 minutes ago, PP1 said:

Been living in Ky since 1986. I've never heard of this before. How far North into KY did it reach?

[The Professor]

I was a sophomore at EKU. Madison County lost 7 people to the tornado outbreak that day. Brandenburg,Ky lost well over 30. Many more were killed or injured in Kentucky. Xenia, Ohio had over 30 deaths. Overall there were 300+ killed during the tornado outbreak that stretched from Alabama to the Canadian border. 
The nighttime sky over Richmond was a constant flash of lightning accompanied by thunder that went on all night. When the sky was lit by huge lightening streaks we could literally see funnel clouds overhead. Fortunately all of them didn’t touch down. The ones that did destroyed an elementary school and some service stations and a barn at White Hall. It was about 7:00pm and no one was in the school. But it left dead cows and hogs scattered all throughout the fields. The area of Red House was hit the hardest. Seven people died in that community. 
it was a terrifying night that I’ll never forget.