If that happened now adays people would just blame the government or global warming.:irked:

On April 3rd the bad times started for my family. My uncle was 24 and had been back from Vietnam and got settled down with a good job. Told my grandmother that he had a date and was going to get her a daughter in law tonight. He never made it home, was killed in a car accident a mile and a half from home then the tornados came on the 4th. Don't know if she said yes or no, but for about 10 years after there was always a red rose on his grave on April 3rd.

 

You know what, now that I look back on it. There were people worst off than us. A sad time it was.

I remember this day like it was yesterday. I grew up in Ohio, between Cincinnati and Dayton. I was with a friend at our club house, and the sky went black. We looked up and saw a funnell cloud and ran into the house. We got underneath our pool table, and the storm passed. I also remember the sound. It honestly sounded like a train was passing our house. Unbelievably loud. We didn't suffer much damage, but about 20-30 minutes later the town of Xenia was wiped out.

I was a sophomore at EKU and remember it very well. A group of us were going out on the By-Pass to eat and I remember saying how unusual the sky looked. It was a greenish-blue appearance. While we were at the Jerry's Restaurant it bagan to hail. Then it started pouring the rain. Then the electricity went off. What had happened, which we were unaware, was a tornado had hit White Hall about 3 miles away and demolished the grade school and several businesses. No one was killed because school had already ended for the day. But several more tornadoes struck around Madison County that night and 7 people lost their lives.

 

Very terrifying and tragic night. I will never forget it.

I was a freshman at Morehead. The popular thing to do that night was to releive the cafeteria of their lunch trays and slide down the hills on them - particularly the hills in front of the girls' dormitories. I KNOW that the young ladies were impressed...

At the time I was working for a contractor at the Dow-Corning plant in Carrollton Ky . We stood outside our fab shop and watched a storm roar up the Indiana side of the river . Now because everyone that worked for us either lived in Louisville or the Cincinnati area we decided to leave work early and get home as fast as possible . We drove up I-71 instead of US 42 because of the existence of the overpasses in case we needed to get shelter .

I got home ok and went to my fiancees' ( wife's ) house to make sure she was ok and then went to my parents house to check on them after asking her to get in her basement . I later learned that she had fallen asleep on her bed and slept through most of the exctiement . Sheesh !!

Also at the time I owned a 34' Nautaline houseboat with two of my cousins . The night before the tornados hit we went to a local bank and they bought out my share of the boat . I was getting married that year and in the process of buying a house in Ft Thomas and didn't want both a boat and house payment so the boat had to go .

We had the boat stored for the winter at Moreheads Boat Dock in Constance Ky . Well the tornado that hit Saylor Park Ohio came right through Morehead's property before it crossed the river . To get to the barns where the boats were stored we had to show proof of ownership . I had asked if they wanted to have me buy back my share of the boat at the time because I thought it was only fair to share in the potential loss but they declined . When we got to Moreheads property it looked like a war zone and the boat was pretty messed up . The Insurance Co eventually totaled the boat and gave my cousins a nice check for the damages .They neglected to do one thing though , ask for the title to the boat .

So now my cousins had money and the title to a messed up boat .They went and got estimates to repair it and found out that it would only cost about 1/3rd of the amount that the insurance company had given them for the damages . So they went ahead and had it repaired . With some of the remaining money they went ahead and bought another house boat that was damaged in the storm , a year old 44' Kingscraft with dual inboards a flying bridge and all the bells and whistles . They had some money left and started to fix up this one . The damage was mostly superficial but it still cost more than the insurance money that they had left .

About a year after the storm they were able to sell the original boat and with the proceeds from this sale were able to finish repairing the Kingscraft that they named the RIP-OFF. Still no request from the insurance Company for the title .

About three years after the storm they got a letter from the Insurance

company finally asking for the title . I guess they looked through their files and found the mistake that the agent had made in neglecting to ask for the title at the time he handed over the check . Tough toenails that boat had been sold almost two years before . The insurance company threatened to sue but nothing ever came of it .

My cousins made out like bandits and for many years afterward had one of the best houseboats on the river .

My sister-in-law was big with child (my only niece) and I remember being scared to death that she would go into labor. We spent the night in a church basement and just listening to the police and rescue sirens is a sound I will never forget.

 

We had just taken a sink out of our house. to put a new one in, that very day and we put the old sink right behind our house (butted up to the back of the house) so it could be taken away the next day. We went to town to get something to eat and that's when all heck broke out. When we finally made it back home the next morning our neighhood was a mess. Our house had hardly anything wrong with it. The thing that amazed me the most was that the sink was gone and nothing else was touched. I don't know where the sink went but to think that it picked it up that close to the house and nothing else was hardly touch is a miracle to me.

Yep. Being the genius children we were, with the parents-of-the-year parents, we all stood on the front porch and watched them in the distance. :lol:

 

I did the same thing in Central Kentucky. I will never forget that day as long as I live.

 

One sat down about two miles or so from our neighborhood in Junction City, KY. (i.e. see Danville) It landed right beside a Natural Gas Pipeline Pumping station known as Texas Eastern. We watched it dance back up into the clouds. That was an awfully long evening, waiting, listening and watching to see if more were coming.

I was 7 and I don't remember anything about this event. I never knew it happened until many years later, probably the 10th anniversary, when I saw something on the national news about it. It must have been horrible. I've never seen a tornado, but stories like this scare me so bad I don't think I could live in the midwest.

 

We don't get tornadoes in EKY.

 

We had a whopper of a flood on April 4, 1977 though.

 

 

That's a particular point I try to make with people sometime. Anyone who lived in that area of KY, Ohio, IN will forever remember the date and the event.

 

But most don't because in 1974 the News was 30 minutes from 6:30 to 7:00 that covered the nation and the world. Only so much time could be devoted to the story and then the footage was in film or poor quality video. There might be a follow up a week or two later and that was it. Time to move on.

 

If we had CNN, Fox, MSNBC, Headline in 1974 those images and constant coverage would be seared into the psyche of the whole nation, even those not effected. That is the difference that current mass news coverage makes now versus then.

 

It's also the reason I think people believe "It's never been this bad before in our world." Probably because these events or a year like 1968 was not covered 24/7. :thumb:

Yep. Being the genius children we were, with the parents-of-the-year parents, we all stood on the front porch and watched them in the distance. :lol:

 

I also remember tuning in to WHAS (even though we lived in CKY) and hearing Dick Gilbert's reports as he tried to fly his traffic copter in the middle of the outbreak in order to give reports and warnings to people. He would feed live descriptions/directions to Wayne Perkey and the others at the main station.

My dad and his family lived in southern Lincoln County at that time. They had tons of wind damage, but no tornado. The next day they all got in the car to drive around and see what had happened. He said everything radio station was out except a tiny one in Monticello - so they drove in that direction listening and seeing all of it. Amazing.

My dad and his family lived in southern Lincoln County at that time. They had tons of wind damage, but no tornado. The next day they all got in the car to drive around and see what had happened. He said everything radio station was out except a tiny one in Monticello - so they drove in that direction listening and seeing all of it. Amazing.

 

Being familiar with that area I assume you've seen the Texas Eastern Pumping Station I was speaking of. It's near the Junction City Airport. There was a subdivision of about 8 company houses to the left of the station as you faced it. That's where it touched down and destroyed all but maybe 1 or2 of the houses. Eventually they bulldozed the whole are and that subdivision is no more.

I was in high school at that time. Luckily, our area wasnt affected much. I do remember not being allowed to use the phones to "keep the lines open", so that people could hear from loved ones. That was pretty stressful for a teenager!