1974 Super Outbreak-Xenia Ohio, 50 years Wednesday April 3

The start of severe weather season is starting to peak. Today they are stating that we are under a slight risk for nasty storms especially for the southern part of Ohio. Normally I would wait to post a historic event on the day of that it occured, but anymore, Im getting into the habit of posting when I am thinking about it. I was only 7 years old in the spring of 1974. I have very few memories of tragic events that happened around the ohio area during those young years. I remember the deaths of people close to me when I was young, which is not surprising. especially my grandma, who was my namesake and who I shared a birthday with coming two months early. In 1974, my granmother suffered a stroke that rendered her paralized and unable to talk. She passed away from Cancer on March 20, 1976. It seemed like those years of my youth were dotted with bad spring weather, in fact the night of my grandmother's passing, a line of severe storms danced through the ohio area, crossing Central Ohio, producing some tornado sightings. I remember that night being stressful. The super outbreak of April 3rd , 1974 was a major weather event, a total of 6 F5'S or now would be classified as EF5 tornados were recorded that day. In terms of power, the Xenia, Ohio Tornado was the worst almost tempting Dr. Ted Fugita to rate it as a F6. Xenia, Ohio is a small town in Greene county and southwest of Columbus. Its kind of spooky because the name of Xenia, even though it meant Hospitality, The Shawnee Indians wouldn't settle in Xenia as they refered to it as "Place Of Devil Winds." The tornado hit Xenia in the late afternoon, after school was out for the day. Living in Delaware, Ohio which is just north of Columbus, I can remember very little about the day. The only real vivid memory was it was sunny and seeing a bunch of paper fly over my Grandparents house (which turned out to be cancelled checks) was freakish to say the least to 11,10, 8 and 7 year olds. To clarify, my mom and dad built our house across from my grandparents. You can say we were just a large yard away from them. This year to the day on April 3 will be 50 years that it happened. I found some of the best youTube Vidoes about The 1974 Xenia, Ohio Tornado. When this type of weather rolls around, I always think about Xenia.