XENIA TORNADO OF 1974!!!

This video is a request from-TooSerious101. On April 3rd, 1974, Bruce Boyd, a 16-year-old Xenia High School student, captured this tornado on 8 mm film and still feels the lasting effects of grabbing the family's new movie camera. During hte 1974 Super Outbreak; out of all the 148 tornadoes to hit 13 states that day, The Xenia Tornado was the deadliest individual tornado of the Super Outbreak. The tornado started near Bellbrook, Ohio, southwest of Xenia at about 4:30PM EDT. It initially started as a moderate-sized tornado, then intensified while moving northeast at about 50 mph (80 km/h). A passing motorist filmed the tornado at its early stages and noticed that at one point two tornadoes formed and merged into one larger tornado. Gil Whitney who was the weather specialist for WHIO-TV in Dayton had alerted the viewers in Montgomery and Greene County in which Xenia was located, about the possible tornado when he showed the supercell with the pronounced hook echo on the rear flank of the storm several minutes before it struck. The raindrops that wrapped around the funnel was the only reason why at that time Whitney spotted the tornadic signature.When it reached Xenia at 4:40PM, numerous structures were completely destroyed, including apartment buildings, homes, businesses, churches and schools. Several train cars were blown over as the tornado crossed a track. The hardest hit area and the first area struck was that of the Arrowhead and adjacent Windsor Park subdivisions near U.S. Route 68, where numerous houses were completely swept away. The Pinecrest Garden district was also extensively affected.One resident recorded the tornado from inside an apartment complex. Before the tornado hit the building, the resident left the tape which continued the recording. When the cassette player was found after the storm, the tape was then made public. A few pictures were taken of the tornado (possibly frames of a film) as it was entering Xenia, and at least one photo was taken of the twister inside of Xenia. Also, this tornado was caught on film. The sixteen year-old boy captured 1 minute and 42 seconds of the infamous twister, and up close with a "Super-8" 8 mm sound-recording movie camera, as it roared through the city.After passing through Xenia, the tornado passed through Wilberforce heavily damaging the university and several campus and residential buildings. Afterwards, the tornado weakened and dissipated in Clark County near South Vienna after traveling nearly 30 miles (48 km). Its maximum width was a half mile (0.8 km) in Xenia. The same parent storm later spawned a weaker tornado northeast of Columbus in Franklin County.Thirty-four were killed in the disaster (including two Ohio Air National Guard servicemen on April 17 in a fire that swept their temporary barracks in a furniture store) and about 1,150 were injured in Xenia alone. About half of the town or about 1,400 buildings were heavily damaged or destroyed. Damage was estimated at $400 million US. Then-US president Richard Nixon personally visited Xenia, and declared the area a disaster area. It took several months for the city to recover from the tornado with the help of the Red Cross and the Ohio National Guard which assisted the recovery efforts. Most of the town was quickly rebuilt afterwards.The Xenia tornado was rated an F5. It was one of two F5s that affected Ohio during the outbreak, the other being in the Cincinnati area. In fact, this tornado was so intense that it is one of only two tornadoes to ever hit any part of the United States that was so strong that meteorologists were tempted to rate it as an F6 (the other one to match that level of intensity was the Moore, OK tornado that struck on May 3, 1999). Xenia was again struck by an F4 tornado in September 2000, which killed 1 and injured about 100 in an area just north of the 1974 path. Prior to the 1974 storm, the city had no tornado sirens. However, after the F5 hit, 10 sirens were installed across the area. Unfortunately, at the time of the 2000 storm, there was no battery backup in the sirens, and the system was mostly silent due to a simple power outage. Compounding the problem was the fact that the National Weather Service never issued a tornado watch or warning. By the time the tornado was visually spotted, and an attempt was made to manually activate Xenia's sirens, four of the city's five sirens had already been destroyed by the tornado. Since this particular event coincided with failures of the meteorological and warning time advances since 1974, it is remarkable that casualties were not more severe.A memorial was also installed near Xenia City Hall to commemorate the tornado victims.Thanks for the request buddy!

Channel: Entertainment
Uploaded: February 29, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Author: stormchaser3751

Length: 01:09
Rating: 4.61
Views: 13808

Tags: 148  1974  3rd  april  bruce  film  most  ohio  shocking  short  tornado  tornadoes  void  xenia  

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