Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Does anyone here remember the tornado Super Outbreak of 1974? I believe there was a record 5 F-5 tornadoes like the ones that decimated Xenia, OH and Limestone County, Alabama. I read a facinating book about the 1974 Super Outbreak which also detailed Ted Fujita's groundbreaking work on tornado research. So, did any of you experience the '74 Outbreak?
I lived through one of those tornados. I was living in Glen'll trailer park in Huntsville Alabama and was 5 years old at the time. Many of us piled into a brick building and it was the last thing standing. When it went over our heads it was loudest strongest wind very powerful and scary. Kind of like the whipping sound you hear when you turn a blender on at full speed. It sucked the door off it's hinges. Everyone screamed. Afterward was ever scarier they couldn't get us out right away because the power lines were down and the electricity was whipping them on the ground sending sparks everywhere. When we finally did get out, they moved us to a shelter. We lost everything.
My memory of it is a little weird. I was 5 years old at the time, and we didn't have an actual tornado from the outbreak in the Charlotte area, so I don't have as precise of a memory.
What I do remember:
I had one of those families where everyone has dinner together, at the same time. We had a little black and white TV in our kitchen, and the news was usually on. And on the day of the outbreak, mom was cooking dinner, and we heard this sound, and she, and my dad, and I all went to the back door and watched, not saying anything as these HUGE hailstones fell through the trees into our backyard. The hail basically totalled our car - the hail damage was about equal to what the car was worth.
That night, we never had a tornado, though we had wave after wave of amazing thunderstorms - nobody slept. My dad worked for an insurance company, so he was taking care of the car situation first thing the next morning.
The next evening, we are together at dinner, and this time, the news is on, and I'm sitting at the table with dad, and the entire newscast is a minute or two of Nixon stuff, and footage from Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky, Alabama, Appalachian North Carolina - of tornadoes and towns flattened, and this really, really blew my mind. All my memories of the event are somewhat impressionistic, but I can remember barraging my parents with questions, and they were fairly smart people, but this was of a scale that outdid their ability to provide a concise explanation, so we just sat, ate, and watched this stuff on the news.
Does anyone here remember the tornado Super Outbreak of 1974? I believe there was a record 5 F-5 tornadoes like the ones that decimated Xenia, OH and Limestone County, Alabama. I read a facinating book about the 1974 Super Outbreak which also detailed Ted Fujita's groundbreaking work on tornado research. So, did any of you experience the '74 Outbreak?
A little off the subject, was wondering if you had made it up to Michigan yet?
I don't because I'm not that old but I'm sure my grandmother remembers it as she was in her early 20s at the time. I'm sure it was scary though. The super outbreak of April 2011 was surprisingly worse than the one in 1974.
I was six years old when this tornado came through the trailer park that we lived in. I remember being taken to the brick building which was flooding and chaotic but probably saved our lives. Later, the police took us to the armory.
Even after 40 years, the memories of the experience can still be overwhelming. A very frightening experience for a little girl.
I would love to chat with anyone who was a young child living in Glen'll at that time.
I wasn't even a year old, so I have no real memories of the Super Outbreak of 74. But I've read a lot about it. Didn't that outbreaks set the record for the most F5s on the ground at one time?
I was a senior at the University of Alabama, working on the student newspaper. We heard about the destruction...there was a call for blood donations and we went to donate, but the line was way too long. Back in my North Alabama hometown, my mom saw one out the kitchen window about a mile south. She hid in a bathroom, but the tornado kept heading east.
The destruction in Limestone County, mentioned earlier, was bad, particularly a trailer park in that county. The park is still there, and has been hit at least twice since. The most recent was last month. A mother and adult son (I think) died, because she refused to go to the underground shelter the park has provided for residents since the 1974 tornadoes.
I don't because I'm not that old but I'm sure my grandmother remembers it as she was in her early 20s at the time. I'm sure it was scary though. The super outbreak of April 2011 was surprisingly worse than the one in 1974.
The one of April 2011 was half a mile from some relatives of mine.
I remember hearing about it on the news, bringing up a map and doing a to/from - it came pretty darn close to their home (North central Alabama). Couldn't get ahold of them for a few days.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Glen'll 1974
