Outbreak Of The Century: 1974 Super Outbreak-- most notable tornadoes and their lasting impacts

This is very informative! You did a great job! Alabama is misspelled, but still a great video! Good job!

Settler: What do you call this place?

Native: "Land Of Deadly Snakes, Biting Flies, And Killer Storms."

Settler: It's charming! We'll build a city here and name it after the governor's wife!

The Tanner tornadoes is so awful to have happened; i cant imagine you’re trying to go out and save people after something like that then a second F5 hits, making it impossible for the rescues to continue until after the next one.

I love learning about tornados. Ive been curious alot recently about kentucky indiana weather because the only well known tornado for us was mayfield.. watching this i learned and could SEE everything. You taught us about the tornado that went back over the river twice and ended up in boone county. I live about 30 minute's south of florence kentucky. It was just amazing learning my area has also had something like that. Sorry i aint very good with my words. I love learning from you though carly 🥲

You gave a well articulated presentation of weather conspiracy being covered up at the end of this video. I respect your delivery of the information. Your knowledge of weather history is commendable.

After living through two major hurricane events and it taking literal years for clean up & over a decade for rebuilding after the first, finding out Xenia with that kind of damage had such an incredibly rapid turn around is absolutely heartbreaking.

Your cats tail is quite a twister too

A little over 3 years ago, my daughter moved from the Phoenix metro area to Xenia, OH with her newborn baby son and the child's fiance (they were engaged at that time). In the months leading up to this move, I literally BEGGED her not to move to Xenia because this was, I now realize, my generation's defining storm. I kept on telling her all the absolutely terrifying stuff that I had seen on our family TV when I was just a 15 y.o. teenage girl, how devastating the damage was (much worse than anything I remember seeing in the movie 'Twister'!), but she just thought that it was a last ditch effort on my part to talk her out of moving so far away. But, it wasn't. When later on she actually SAW the photos and listened to the people's stories about the "Inconceivable Tornado", she believed me. In her 3 years 2 months living in Xenia, she has already had to go down into her storm cellar 3 TIMES with her little guy. She didn't used to have a morbid fear of thunderstorms before. She now does. And wants to get out of Dodge (Xenia and that entire southwest area of Ohio).
Yes, I would call it, as well as a handful of others, an EF-6. Joplin MO, Moore OK, and that insanely powerful, very wide one that also hit Oklahoma all fit that description.

Are you going to cover the Palm Sunday outbreak of April 11, 1965?

The bath tub thing makes me think we need the strangest thing tornadoes have done video.

My grandma was in this

My family lived in Xenia, Ohio in the 70's. My Mom is a devout Christian. Mom got a letter from Oral Roberts Ministries saying there was going to be something devastating coming to that part of the country and urged my Mom to move her family! My Dad was a foreman at General Motors and didn't really believe in that kind of stuff (premonitions, prophecies, etc) but bc my Mom was so insistent and seemed already traumatized by the prophecy, my Dad finally relented and literally one month before the tornados, my Parents moved the entire family to Florida to live near Mom's Mom. Dad's entire family lived in Dayton Ohio and so did most of Moms family. I grew up hearing the story from my parents. My Dad was a very down to earth level-headed man, so it was always interesting for me to hear Dad say that he felt there was something to this particular warning. My Mom kept that letter in her Bible and used the story to convince lots of ppl that God warns. I'm not saying anything about anyone else who lived there bc both my Parents raved about Xenia all the time saying Xenia was Peaceful, beautiful, quaint, and they missed it terribly when they moved but the only reason they even considered leaving was bc of my Moms reaction to that unsettling Prophecy letter. My Sister and older brother were more than 5 years older than me and had lots of memories of Xenia too. I was the baby, my next sibling was 1 yr older but was born with a severe heart condition so he didn't have any memory of being outdoors much. I was actually born in Florida in 1970 while my Mom was here visiting her sick Father so I'm the only member of my family that was not born in Dayton Ohio but Tampa, FL. Both my parents were also born in Dayton, Ohio as were all of their families. It was a pretty big decision for my Dad to agree to leave Ohio and also leave his 12 year job as a foreman at General Motors. As my Dad told the story, it was that my Mom's mom was now alone in Florida as a widow, my Mom was closer to her Mom than anyone else but that warning letter was the deal/ tie breaker! My Dad ended up working for the Post office for the rest of his life and every time we'd go to Dayton, Ohio to visit family, we always took a drive thru Xenia. I'm now 53 and after hearing my own parents rave about how much they loved Xenia, if I ever decided to leave Florida, Xenia would be top of my list. We moved into our Florida home just weeks before that tornado and my parents were so impacted by that warning from That Christian ministry that even my Dad told the story my entire childhood!

Only nature can produce events so majestic and horrifying all at once. I was not yet 6 yrs old and in southern Illinois at the time, but can recall the dark morning and my uncle saying, "The skies are angry, this ain't good..." We got massive storms and a funnel, but no touchdown. Never forget watching the 10pm news- the only time I was allowed to at that age.

ALAMABA

ALAMABA!

My dad was 10- they lived in Sharonville, Ohio. After the Salyer Park tornado recycled and set down again in Lebanon as an F4, him and his brother watched from the basement window as the tornado roared by, missing their street, but destroying the next street over. He can very clearly recall seeing that tornado miss them by almost nothing😞

Not to say i love tornadoes but i love that your video/intro had snippets of the documentary the day of the killer tornadoes!! It was a good old fashioned and interesting documentary!!

anyone else from central illinois? ive been told for decades the decatur tornado was an F4 but lately ive been seeing F3.... jus curious if anybody knows my family was affected and nearly died... the guy that died lived on the same street as my aunt i believe and my ol man got his car tossed while he was in it 👇

my family was actually affected by this outbreak.... the decatur il tornado was F3-F4 intensity and hit my aunts house on shadow lane they lived but were injured...my dad was in a car and it was almost tossed off a 10ft dropoff into a pond ... dad said the car landed on the edge of the bank and teetered luckily the car stayed on land

Where is “Alamaba”?

I didn't realize this, but the visible "cloud" portion of a tornado (not the debris/dust cloud) is basically humidity in the air around the updraft condensing instantly to cloud, I think?
Anyway, indicative of the huge pressure differential a tornado involves.

I was 2 years old Louisville Kentucky 1974

You are an amazingly empathetic and caring woman. I can’t imagine the suffering and continued long lasting pain these poor people carry the rest of their lives, either.

In 1974 no one really knew what a tornado watch or warning was. Hell local weather guys didn't know . I was 20 years old then and remember this well. TV weather guys didn't have a clue. Antique radio .

I remember this tornado outbreak of April 1974 very well. It was the event that sparked my interest in the subject of such storms to begin with. I lived in central New Jersey,a long way away from Tornado Alley and a place where in general no one ever had to worry about megastorms. The thought never entered our minds. Yet the news reports that came in about "The Day of the Hundred Tornadoes" and the complete annihilation of Xenia,Ohio,were heartrending. Sadder still was that few New Jersians had ever heard of the place until it was wiped from the map and gone. I was a track and field team member at the time and out on the track behind the school for hours every afternoon. I remember well how black and violent the skies were for several days in that early April of 1974. It gave me an eery feel for what the killer storms were like for those who'd suffered their wrath in the Midwest.

Carrie Anne, yes, one remains scarred by this. I was just NE of Xenia and the damage around my location was minimal, compared to that found in Xenia, I still signed while watching your video even after 50 years…

I live in Northern California and here there are hardly any tornadoes but there are a lot of earthquakes, um can you do videos on that? I don't know if this earthquake is the one that would define my generation but the one that I remember the most is the February 9th 1971, Sylmar earthquake. Love from Marysville California

I remember this outbreak well! Interesting-but I noticed in the state-by-state breakdown that Alabama was misspelled, otherwise very well-done!

My great uncle’s were in Guin, they managed to call on a pay phone to warn my grandfather to get my father, uncle and grandma into shelter.

The background music drowns out your voice.

I remember this like it was yesterday! I was visiting my Grandparents in Louisville gor spring break. It was like we were being "attacked" by tornadoes. All over the place. Numerous states and twisters. I was 8. I had dreams about tornadoes for years after that! Thanks for making this video.

Watching this a day after the 50th anniversary of this outbreak (by chance). I cannot fathom what the people who lived in the affected areas felt. Absolutely terrifying.

I was talking to my dad about the outbreak today since it's been exactly 50 years ago now. He dropped the bomb on me that he was actually teaching at a school in Charlottesville, IN and the Kennard F4 passed them on the opposite side of the road and two out two houses. It then went on to destroy the elementary school in Kennard. Never knew he had a story until now!

considering that i live in Cincinnati and there was a 70% chance this past tuesday, watching this is so surreal and terrifying 😭 like i never imagine it ACTUALLY happening here, yet it did when my parents were still not even 5!

It's Reminds Me Of Blizzard Of 93 Struck In Atlanta Georgia

I lived in Middletown, Ohio in 1974 thank God we didn't get hit that day but I still remember coming home on the school bus and how weird the sky looked and hail hitting the school bus on the way home .Little did I know shortly after Xenia was getting hit by this monster storm.

50 years ago today. What a horrific event

50 years ago today

Thanks for the video! I live in Huntsville, AL and although I didn’t live here in 1974, I had family that did. My cousin told me about how bad it was and I have lived here through the November 15,1989 & April 27, 2011 tornadoes. It’s truly terrifying. Having storms yesterday was a reminder and I’m glad it wasn’t as bad as predicted but it’s great that the technology has made it easier for everyone to take cover in time. Once again, yesterday, tornadoes hit the same states as in this video. I pray for everyone that lost family, friends and homes. ❤🙏🏻❤️ It’s sad that it takes events like these to happen for us come together as human beings and Americans to care for one another and help each other and remind us all that we need each other.

I came across this video and wanted to share my story. I was 10 years old in 1974, and my family lived in Indiana, in Greenwood. We experienced a small tornado (never found out what it was on the scale), which passed close to our neighborhood, destroyed a furniture store and used car lot, then moved out into the county and destroyed some farm houses, barns. My dad wanted to get to our grandparent's house because they had a basement. When we got there, the storm was to the east, heading out of Greenwood, and the sun came out and lit up that tornado. It was beautiful, it was white and turning like a top. I'll never forget It!

I remember April 3rd 1974. I was 4 years old then but recall it like yesterday

You make great videos.

I have just discovered your channel a couple days ago, and so far I'm hooked! I grew up in the Midwest (moved since then) just west of St Louis, MO, so I've had my share of scary thunderstorms, tornado sirens, and feeling like tornadoes might be on the way to get me. (Thankfully most of those sirens were just regular testing, but you still get nervous when that eerie wail starts up.)

I'm really enjoying the history and research you've put into these videos, and the detail you put into the events leading up to and following a tornado strike. The breakdown of events following the destruction of Parkersburg was very insightful, and I'm planning on catching your video on the mental effects of surviving these events.

I live on the East Coast now, where few in my community has any real experience or deeper understanding of living in areas these deadly storms commonly sweep through. Mostly I live with hurricanes and the like, which is a whole other can of worms.

Please keep up the great work.

REALLY well done video Carly. I've been binge-watching videos of historic outbreaks and this is one of the best I've sat through