50 Year Anniversary of the 1974 Tornado
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50 Year Anniversary of the 1974 Tornado
Wednesday April 3, 1974 will always be a date that lives in infamy to myself and many other Wayne countians. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the violent tornado that left a path of destruction throughout the county. Four Wayne countians lost their lives that night and several more were injured.
I was nine years old on the night of the tornado but still remember it like it was yesterday. We lived in the Parnell community. My grandmother was sick that night, so luckily my family stayed with her instead of going home. She lived not far from our house and her house was surrounded by several large trees. I remember the storm and the wind. The wind kept getting stronger and stronger and was shaking the house and sounded like a freight train. My parents made me get underneath the stairwell that led to the upstairs and handed my baby brother to me. He was crying and I was terrified. It seemed like hours but in reality it was only several minutes and then it was over. My father credited the trees for blocking part of the wind and saving us that night.
The next morning, we drove to our house only to find it destroyed. If we had been home, we would probably not have survived. Then we heard the news about our neighbors, Sam Turner and his aunt Laura Southwood, they had been killed during the storm. My father and I walked up to their house, but it was gone. The storm had picked it up and smashed it into the side of an adjacent hill several hundred feet away. I can only Imagine the terror that Sam and Laura must have felt.
There was a path thru the field that the tornado had created in almost a straight line from our house to Sam’s. It looked like a couple of bulldozers had made the path. Similar sights of destruction could be seen throughout the county. Electricity and phones were out across several communities. I remember seeing a couple of cars that had been flipped by the wind and trees were down everywhere.
After the storm people started building basement houses or storm shelters for protection from future tornadoes. Having a basement was my top priority when I built my house thirty years ago. Whenever the forecast gives storms or the wind picks up, that is where you will find me. Today, many new houses have basements, not so much for storm protection but for extra living and storage space.
Today, with the advances in science and technology, we have a much better warning system than we had fifty years ago. However, be wary because Mother Nature can be unpredictable even with these advances.
