April 3, 1974
This video is the original 8mm "Super-8" videocamera shot. This tornado is often called the worst tornado in the Super Outbreak and is also one of the most violent tornadoes ever recorded. The tornado did not form by itself, instead, outside of Xenia, two smaller tornadoes collided and formed one single massive tornado. The tornado killed 32. Bruce Boyd died on September 17, 2007.
Information! From Wikipedia:
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.
When reaching 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. A 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 (see my video, "Sayler Park/Cincinnati F5 tornado"). 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 weren't more severe.
A memorial was also installed near Xenia City Hall to commemorate the tornado victims.
Credit: Bruce Boyd
Tags: Super Outbreak BruceBoyd Xenia Ohio OH tornado massive super8
