1974 Super Outbreak Part 2: Xenia Tornado

The 1974 Super Outbreak remains the worst tornado outbreak in U.S. History. Storm Shield looks at the deadliest tornado from that day.

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[LeviathanVZ]

As someone who lives near and works in Xenia, there’s always an Erie dreadful feeling anytime a storm rolls in.

[longlakeshore]

The filmed portions are of the F5 Sayler Park tornado which struck the west suburbs of Cincinnati at 6pm.  Xenia was struck at 440pm, an hour and 20 minutes earlier.

[Kevill]

The world is small sometimes... lets see how this went down.
I was watching a video about a storm on 05/31/13 in which Tim Samaras, his son and crew died. So I googled Tim, got his wikipedia page which took me to an article about wedge tornados. From there I learned about the super outbreak of 1974 and searched it on youtube which brought me to this video first.
To make it weirder, I've been to Xenia, Ohio. I was there 2 years ago and specifically went to the highschool.
Looking at it then, it is crazy to think that all that area had been obliterated by this tornado.

[robertphillips]

The Xenia 1974 tornado passed directly overhead our Kettering home and dropped hail stones the size of Chicago softballs, which are over 50% bigger than regular softballs. Kept one in the freezer for months just to prove it to people because they believed I was exaggerating. They tore the awnings off our home and put huge dents in our roof.

[ajk]

My mom was seven years old and lived in Centerville, another suburb of Dayton, when this happened. She, her two younger sisters (my aunts), and their parents (my grandparents) watched the supercell go over their house as it was on its way to Xenia. It crossed the county line from Montgomery into Greene, touched down in Bellbrook, and arrived in Xenia at 4:40 PM. Thirty-three people died. The Ohio Air National Guard was deployed to Xenia. Two guardsmen died three days after the tornado in a fire in the building where they were quartered. Their names are included on the memorial plaque at one of the corners of Xenia City Hall, which is across the street from the Greene County Courthouse.

My grandfather was an engineer for Dayton Power & Light (DP&L), the area’s electricity provider. He was dispatched to Xenia to help repair the grid after the tornado, and he brought my mom and her sisters there to show them what a tornado can do.

Thirty-seven years later, and eight years ago today, my mom woke me (15 at the time) and my sister (12 at the time) and told us to get to the basement of our house in Southwest Virginia. We were in the middle of the 2011 outbreak. Our county was under a tornado warning. When I got to school later in the morning, I told my peers about it. They asked why we didn’t just go back to sleep when the warning came out. They have been raised to think that the mountains here make us immune to tornadoes, even though the county just to the west of us had been hit by two tornadoes earlier in that same month.

[DarkSim]

00:27 Was in that Northbound lane on I75 at that exact time 47 Years ago today..we were on I75 heading North and it was paralleling us as we went up I75 and it was going thru Sayler Park/Western side of Cincinnati..was watching it as my Dad was driving..I was only 8 years old so I don't remember it very well but what I can remember is permanently burned into my memory. I remember how dark and grey the sky was.

[glennquagmire]

The filmed portions shown here are from the Cincinnati tornado an hour or so before Xenia.  The camera view was taken  between the Mitchell Rd. and I-74W exits. 

[Jaymindrew]

When violent EF5 tornadoes get together, and they want to scare each other, they’d tell Xenia Tornado stories. It was truly the tornado from hell! 🌪️

[tonyahaley]

6-year-old me was completely freaked out by the park's duck pond full of trees and houses, but no ducks!

[christopherstevenrankin]

My grandfather worked at the base. Upon arriving home in Beavercreek that afternoon, he spoke of finding golf ball sized balls of hail in the front yard. My grandmother worked at Heathergreen at the time of the tornado, and was there on that day.

[TS-evbl]

I grew up in central Ohio and was 14 when this happened. I remember that day very well. We had several years in a row with rough spring weather in the early - mid 70s. After Xenia happened we started having regular tornado drills in school. Go to an interior hallway, crouch along the wall with your face toward the wall, and cover your head with your arms. We wise-guy teens secretly added another half-joking last step to the checklist - kiss your a** goodbye.

[melissamcdonald]

My mother joined the Air Force after this storm!

[terrymakstaller]

Is there a chance that the tornado that stuck Hamilton cty is the same tornado? I saw it hit Sailor park on the Ohio River from a few miles away.

[No]

my grandfathers friend got killed by a peice of wood in this storm

[lpotts]

From that same outbreak Guin, Alabama was hit hard as well.

[Yuh_elitemercs]

Not a fun fact:I searched up on Google and it was rated ef6
Also that if fake bc ef6 don't exist I would call it super ef5