1974 Xenia tornado

1974 F5 tornado in Xenia, Ohio the later F4 tornado 2000 Xenia tornado infobox 1/2 300 Fred Stewart's Xenia Photo.png The 1974 Xenia, Ohio tornado storm seen from Wright-Pattern Air Force Base Radar.jpg 1974_Xenia_tornado_path_with_2010_aerial_imagery.jpg Xenia–Wilberforce Aerial 2.jpg Clockwise from top: The tornado as it appeared in the southeast Pinecrest Garden section of Xenia, Ohio; a reconstructed track map of the 1974 Xenia tornado, showing its path from Xenia to Wilberforce, Ohio; an aerial of damage in downtown Xenia, with the Greene County Courthouse visible in the bottom of the image; radar imagery of the tornado, captured by the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base radar April 3, 1974, 4:33 p.m. EDT (UTC–04:00) 39 minutes April 3, 1974, 5:12 p.m. EDT (UTC–04:00) atl 31.3 mi km 305 mph km/h onT. Theodore Fujita NEW EVIDENCE FROM APRIL 3-4, 1974 TORNADOES Ninth Conference on Severe Local Storms 21–23 October 1975 1–9 https://swco-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/10605/261928/ttu_fujita_000192.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y#:~:text=Without%20suction%20vortices%2C%20the%20Xenia,mph%20depending%20upon%20the%20altitude 5 August 2023 The University of ChicagoArnold R.T. Bass H.E. February 1981 Determination of Tornado Wind Speeds from Tornadic Sounds https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1934/ML19347C850.pdf November 26, 2024 University of Mississippi F5 1974 32 (+2 indirect) 1,150 $250 million (1974 USD)$US 0.25 1974 2 billion (US USD) Greene and Clark Counties, Ohio; particularly Xenia and Wilberforce 1974 Super Outbreak and Tornadoes of 1974 The 1974 Xenia tornado was a large and extremely violent F5 tornado that destroyed portions of Xenia and Wilberforce, Ohio, in Metro Dayton, during the afternoon of April 3, 1974. It was the deadliest individual tornado of the 1974 Super Outbreak, the 24-hour period between April 3 and April 4, 1974, during which 148 tornadoes touched down in 13 different U.S. states.US Department of Commerce NOAA The Super Outbreak of April 3-4, 1974 https://www.weather.gov/iln/19740403 2024-02-18 www.weather.gov EN-USRisk Management Solutions 2004 Analysis and Reconstruction of the 1974 Tornado Super Outbreak https://forms2.rms.com/rs/729-DJX-565/images/scs_1974_tornado_super_outbreak.pdf RMS Special ReportTornado Basics https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/tornadoes/ 2024-02-18 NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory EN-US The Xenia tornado is considered one of the worst tornadoes in American history and has been a major driving force behind improvements to warning systems, alarms, and safety protocols across the United States. Across the state, 2,000 individuals were injured, 7,000 homes were destroyed, and 39 people were killed during the 1974 Super Outbreak, 32 of these deaths being in Xenia.U.S. Department of Commerce 1974 Natural Disaster Survey Report 74-1: The Widespread Tornado Outbreak of April 3-4, 1974 https://www.weather.gov/media/lmk/pdf/apr3_1974/natural_disaster_survey_report_74_1_the_widespread_tornado_outbreak_of_april_3_4_1974_a_report_to_the_administrator.pdf A Report to the Administrator Despite Ohio being better equipped for a tornadic disaster than many other states, a survey team from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found the lack of tornado sirens to be one of the leading causes of unpreparedness. This was one of two tornadoes to be assigned a preliminary F6 rating by Dr. Ted Fujita, the other being the 1970 Lubbock tornado; however, the rating was later downgraded to an F5, with maximum winds estimated at 305 MPH Meteorological synopsis 1974 Super Outbreak#Meteorological synopsis thumb|left|The 1974 Xenia tornado on radar, courtesy of the National Climatic Data Center|225x225px A powerful springtime low pressure system developed across the North American Interior Plains on April 2. While moving into the Mississippi and Ohio Valley areas, a surge of moist air originating from the Gulf of Mexico intensified the storm. There were sharp temperature contrasts between both sides of the system, creating very unstable weather conditions. Between the two outbreaks, an additional tornado was reported in Indiana on the morning of April 3, several hours before the official start of the outbreak.Grazulis Thomas P. Significant Tornadoes 1680–1991 July 1993 The Tornado Project of Environmental Films 978-1-879362-03-1 St. Johnsbury, VT On April 3, severe weather watches were issued south of the Great Lakes, while in portions of the Upper Midwest, snow was reported, with heavy rain falling across central Michigan and most of Ontario. Tornado summary NCDC Storm Data for the 1974 Xenia tornado NOAA's finalized damage survey and analysisThe tornado formed near Bellbrook, Ohio, southwest of Xenia, at about 4:30 pm EDT. It began as a wispy, uncondensed tornado, gradually intensifying as it passed east of Bellbrook. At this time, the tornado was moving at a pace of about 50 mph km/h on. The tornado exhibited a multiple-vortex structure, described as a "pair of funnels coming together" by witnesses,48th anniversary of devastating Xenia tornado https://www.nbc4i.com/weather/48th-anniversary-of-devastating-xenia-tornado/#:~:text=The%20Xenia%20tornado%20on%20Apr,affected%20half%20of%20the%20city. WCMH-TV 4 April 2022 NBC News 18 February 2023 18 February 2023 https://web.archive.org/web/20230218040532/https://www.nbc4i.com/weather/48th-anniversary-of-devastating-xenia-tornado/#:~:text=The%20Xenia%20tornado%20on%20Apr,affected%20half%20of%20the%20city. dead and continued to increase in size and intensity as it approached town. Gil Whitney, the weather specialist for WHIO-TV in Dayton, alerted viewers in Montgomery and Greene Counties (where Xenia is located) about the possible tornado, broadcasting the radar image of the supercell with a pronounced hook echo on the rear flank of the storm several minutes before the tornado struck Xenia. The storm was visible on radar because of raindrops wrapping around the circulation. Simpson, Jamie Radar Provides Life-Saving Warnings Of Tornadoes WHIO-TV (Dayton, Ohio) http://www.whiotv.com/severewx/2963263/detail.html March 31, 2004 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20080211235142/http://www.whiotv.com/severewx/2963263/detail.html February 11, 2008 The massive tornado went into the western part of Xenia, completely flattening the Windsor Park and Arrowhead subdivisions at an intensity of F5 and sweeping away entire rows of brick homes with little debris left behind. Extensive wind-rowing of debris occurred in nearby fields.http://www.erh.noaa.gov/iln/events/19740403/aerial.php Aerial Damage Photographs April 1, 2013 NWS Wilmington, OH NOAA August 31, 2014 When the storm reached central Xenia at 4:40 pm, apartment buildings, homes, businesses, churches, and schools—including Xenia High School—were destroyed. At this time, the tornado was videotaped and was observed to have "as many as five subvortices merging into one" tornado. Students in the school, practicing for a play, took cover in the main hallway seconds before the tornado dropped a school bus onto the stage where they had been practicing and extensively damaged the school building.Grazulis Thomas P. Significant Tornadoes 1680–1991 July 1993 The Tornado Project of Environmental Films 978-1-879362-03-1 St. Johnsbury, VTRosenfield Jeffrey Eye of The Storm: Inside the World's Deadliest Tornadoes, Hurricanes, and Blizzards. 2003 Basic Books 978-0738208916 320 Several railroad cars were lifted and blown over as the tornado passed over a moving Penn Central freight train in the center of town. It toppled headstones in Cherry Grove Cemetery, then moved through the downtown business district, passing west of the courthouse, which sustained some exterior damage. Numerous businesses in downtown Xenia were heavily damaged or destroyed, and several people were killed at the A&W Root Beer stand as the building was flattened. At the time, this was the state's highest tornadic death toll for a single building since 1953.https://books.google.com/books?id=QANPLARGXFMC&q=1974+xenia+cincinnati+tornado&pg=PA283 Thunder in the Heartland: A Chronicle of Outstanding Weather Events in Ohio Thomas W. Schmidlin Jeanne Appelhans Schmidlin 283–288 9 August 1996 Kent State University Press Google Books 14 March 2019 9780873385497 Past downtown, the tornado continued into the Pinecrest Garden district. The Xenia tornado was recorded on film by one resident, and its sound was recorded on tape by a Mr. Brokeshoulder from inside an apartment complex. Before the tornado hit the building, the resident left the tape recorder on, and it was found after the storm. At the same time, a few blocks away, 3 minutes and 21 seconds of footage were captured by 16-year-old Xenia resident Bruce Boyd with a "Super-8" 8mm movie camera, a pre-1973 model without sound recording capability. The footage was later paired with the nearby tape recording. Boyd's film Boyd, Bruce Xenia Ohio Tornado YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrJaUQEWOs4 April 3, 2011 shows multiple vortices within the larger circulation as the storm swept through Xenia. Upon exiting, the tornado passed through Wilberforce, heavily damaging several campus and residential buildings of Wilberforce University.Ohio Historical Society April 3, 1974: Xenia Tornado http://www.ohiohistory.org/etcetera/exhibits/swio/pages/content/1974_tornado.htm Ohiohistory.org 2024-07-22 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20120707005507/https://www.ohiohistory.org/etcetera/exhibits/swio/pages/content/1974_tornado.htm July 7, 2012 Central State University sustained considerable damage, and a water tower was toppled. Afterwards, the tornado weakened before dissipating in Clark County near South Vienna, traveling approximately 30 mi km. Its maximum width was a half-mile (0.8 km) in Xenia. The same parent storm spawned a weaker tornado northeast of Columbus in Franklin County. Thirty-two people died in the tornado, and about 1,150 were injured in Xenia, several of whom took proper shelter.T. Theodore Fujita STATISTICS OF APRIL 3-4, 1974 TORNADOES https://www.weather.gov/media/iln/events/19740403/FujitaStats.pdf University of ChicagoBigler Virginia J. 1975 The Xenia Tornado—At Its Beginning https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00431672.1975.9931741 Weatherwise 28 2 78–79 10.1080/00431672.1975.9931741 1975Weawi..28b..78B 18 February 2023 subscription In addition to fatalities, two Ohio Air National Guardsmen deployed for disaster assistance were killed on April 17 when a fire swept through their temporary barracks in a furniture store.Laffoon Polk Tornado! Harper & Row 1975 New York 125 The memorial in downtown Xenia lists 34 deaths in honor of the two Guardsmen.http://extremeplanet.me/2012/11/27/the-indefinitive-list-of-the-strongest-tornadoes-ever-recorded-part-iv/ The Indefinitive List of the Strongest Tornadoes Ever Recorded (Part IV) | Extremeplanet.me November 27, 2012 April 18, 2013 April 7, 2019 https://web.archive.org/web/20190407065947/http://extremeplanet.me/2012/11/27/the-indefinitive-list-of-the-strongest-tornadoes-ever-recorded-part-iv/ dead http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=53867 April 3, 1974 Xenia Tornado Memorial Marker Hmdb.org April 18, 2013 December 2, 2013 https://web.archive.org/web/20131202230027/http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=53867 dead About 1,400 buildings, roughly half of the town, were damaged or destroyed. Damage was estimated at $250 million (equivalent to $US 0.25 1974 2 billion in US).https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/storm-events-database/event-details/10086976 Event Details Storm Events Database National Centers for Environmental Information April 30, 2024 Aftermath Community recovery The impact of the tornado on the city of Xenia caused both emotional and physical damage. During the initial moments of the tornado, many feared for their own lives, as well as the lives of their families and friends. Cincinnati reporter Polk Laffoon noted, "In all, nine people lost their lives during those first few seconds...before it even did a fraction of the damage which made it so famous."Laffoon Polk Tornado! Harper & Row 1975 New York 30left|thumb|F5 damage to homes in the Arrowhead/Windsor Park area of Xenia President Richard Nixon made an unannounced visit to Xenia a few days later. It would be the first and only city affected by the 1974 Super Outbreak that he would visit. Upon inspecting the damage, he said: "As I look back over the disasters, I saw the earthquake in Anchorage in 1964; I saw the hurricanes... Hurricane Camille in 1969 down in Mississippi, and I saw Hurricane Agnes in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. And it is hard to tell the difference among them all, but I would say in terms of destruction, just total devastation, this is the worst I have seen."Woolley John T. Peters Gerhard (via Richard Nixon) April 13, 1974 Remarks During an Inspection Tour of Tornado Damage in Ohio http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=4171 April 25, 2011 The American Presidency Project President Nixon immediately declared Xenia a disaster area. Although the Federal Disaster Relief Act was already introduced in 1973, it had not passed Congress at the time. The 1974 Super Outbreak disaster was a catalyst for accelerated passage of the act through Congress in 1974, according to Nixon.Nixon, Richard M. Richard Nixon 1974 The President's Remarks at the Bill Signing Ceremony at the White House. May 22, 1974 http://bulk.resource.org/gao.gov/93-288/0000FB73.pdf dead Presidential Documents: Richard Nixon, 1974 10 21 788 https://web.archive.org/web/20111124074159/http://bulk.resource.org/gao.gov/93-288/0000FB73.pdf November 24, 2011 2011-04-26 It took several months for the city to recover from the tornado, with the help of the Red Cross, the Ohio National Guard, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development assisting the recovery efforts.30th Anniversary of the 1974 Xenia Tornado http://omp.ohiolink.edu/OMP/YourScrapbook?scrapid=3619 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20091011142228/http://omp.ohiolink.edu/OMP/YourScrapbook?scrapid=3619 2009-10-11 2015-10-26 Omp.ohiolink.edu By December 1974, federal and state assistance programs raised a total of $34.4 million. Shortly after, the Department of Transportation initiated a public transportation unit—X-line—to assist locals who had lost their primary means of transportation. Prior to the 1974 tornado, Xenia did not have any form of public transportation system.Casey Robert Coefield C 1976 Xenia, Ohio: Transit Service for a Rebuilding Community https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/10931 Small City Transit 1 10.21949/1526894 National Transportation Library In recognition of their coverage of the tornado under difficult circumstances, the staff of the Xenia Daily Gazette won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting in 1975.1975 Winners http://www.pulitzer.org/awards/1975 Pulitzer.org June 12, 2012 August 16, 2013 https://web.archive.org/web/20130816035648/http://www.pulitzer.org/awards/1975 dead The Xenia tornado was one of two rated F5 tornadoes that affected Ohio during the outbreak, the other striking the area of Cincinnati. Xenia was later struck by two other tornadoes—a small one in April 1989 and a large one in September 2000, which was an F4 tornado that killed one and injured about 100 in an area parallel to and north of the 1974 path. Sharp, Debra Super tornado outbreak : Xenia, Ohio, serves as twister memorial USA Today https://www.usatoday.com/weather/tornado/outbreak/wxenia74.htm April 2, 1999 Tornado preparedness Following the 1974 Super Outbreak, NOAA attempted to implement an expansion of its Weather Radio, believing it would prevent the same devastating destruction in the event of another natural disaster. Unfortunately, the weather radio system received little attention throughout the 1970s and 1980s.Steinberg Theodore Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America Lightning Source 2011 Milton Keynes 155–156 The National Weather Service lacked funds and staff, leaving many cities to their own devices when it came to tornado preparedness. However, Xenia took it upon itself to ensure that in the event of another tornado, its citizens would be ready. Before the 1974 storm, the city had no tornado sirens. After the F5 tornado hit on April 3, 1974, ten sirens were installed across the area. Taylor, David Few warned of twister The Cincinnati Enquirer http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2000/09/22/loc_few_warned_of.html September 22, 2000 July 2026 InternetArchiveBot Every building is required to have a clearly marked tornado shelter, and employees are required to know the proper actions to take during an emergency. Many of the buildings that were rebuilt immediately following the tornado took on the appearance of "concrete fortresses," focusing on safety rather than aesthetic. The Ohio Committee for Severe Weather Awareness (OCSWA) was established in 1978 with the mission of "...educating Ohioans about the natural disasters that typically affect the state..."OCSWA About Us https://weathersafety.ohio.gov/about-us/about-us Ohio Committee for Severe Weather Awareness Every spring, the OCSWA hosts Spring Severe Weather Awareness Week, which encourages schools and families to openly discuss disaster plans. Additionally, there is a statewide tornado drill held on the Wednesday of that week. In the state of Ohio, principals of local schools are required to ensure their students receive routine emergency protocol training six times per school year.Section 3737.73 - Ohio Revised Code Ohio Laws https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-3737.73 2024-02-18 codes.ohio.gov Outside the school system, it is not uncommon to hear a tornado siren being tested weekly at noon on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Saturdays. Preliminary F6 rating Disagreements on the intensity of tornadoes Dr. Ted Fujita and a team of colleagues from the University of Chicago, University of Oklahoma, and National Severe Storms Laboratory, undertook a 10-month study of the 1974 Super Outbreak. Along with discovering new knowledge about tornadoes, such as downbursts and microbursts, and assessing damage to surrounding structures, the Xenia tornado was determined to be the worst out of 148 storms.Tetsuya Theodore Fujita The Tornado Project http://www.tornadoproject.com/fscale/tedfujita.htm 1998 2011-04-26 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20101130162839/http://tornadoproject.com/fscale/tedfujita.htm November 30, 2010 Analysis and Reconstruction of the 1974 Tornado Super Outbreak 5 Risk Management Solutions http://www.rms.com/Publications/1974SuperTornadoReport.pdf April 2, 2004 2011-04-26 https://web.archive.org/web/20070710085937/http://www.rms.com/Publications/1974SuperTornadoReport.pdf July 10, 2007 dead Fujita initially assigned a preliminary rating of F6 intensity ± 1 scale. https://www.weather.gov/media/ohx/PDF/fujita_april31974.pdf Fujita T. Theodore Jumbo Tornado Outbreak of 3 April 1974 1974 See also List of F5 and EF5 tornadoes Tornadoes of 1974 2000 Xenia tornado — an F4 tornado that also hit Xenia, Ohio, 26 years later after the F5 List of notable media in the field of meteorology Gummo References 1974-04-03 04-03 1974-04-03