Tornado of 1974
From "Lexington" by Mary Wilson and Sharon Y. Asher, published sometime after 1975.
THE TORNADO OF 1974
A terror called "Tornado" swept through Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana on April 5, 1974 (according to Jeannie Noe Carlisle, the correct date is April 3). The storm struck the southeastern portion of Scott County at about 3 p.m., leaving a path of broken and uprooted trees, damaged and destroyed homes and injured and dead livestock.
Residents of Lexington, alerted by media warnings, watched as the storm approached the community from the south, finally veering east and away from the town itself.
Residents, however, were not to totally escape the tragedy of death. For after veering east, the tornado struck a school bus driven by Maurice Hardy on the Hardy Mill Road and, in destroying the vehicle, cast it several yards from the road. Of the children who had sought refuge in a roadside ditch, 12 were hospitalized as was the driver. Young David Copple, age 13, succumbed from his injuries at a Louisville hospital.
Several residents, left homeless through loss of trailer homes and damaged property, found their more fortunate neighbors lending needed assistance as the county sought to revive itself in the aftermath.
April 3 & 4, 1974 Great Plains of America
On April 3, 1974, the largest single outbreak of tornadoes took place. Later, it became known as the Super Outbreak, spawning 127 tornadoes over a period of two days. In at least six of the tornadoes, winds were faster than 261 mph, making them F5s on the Fujita scale. That’s the normal number of F5 tornaoes to occur in any single decade!
All in all, 315 people in 11 states were killed, with 6,142 injured. Total financial damage was pegged somewhere around $600 million. The Red Cross estimated that 27,590 families suffered some type of loss due to the storms.
The town that suffered the worst damage was Xenia, Ohio, 16 miles west of Dayton. There, a 1/2 mile wide tornado struck one hour after most high school students left for the day. A teacher and a few students, however, who stayed to rehearse for a play, escaped the school only a few seconds before two school buses were tossed through the wall onto the stage.
Recollections of Jeannie Noe Carlisle.
Yes, that tornado was a bad one. There were 2 here at our house at the same time. One was across the creek (east) of our house - the small one and the main one was up by the Split Stump Cemetery. They were both pulling at our house at the same time. The little one pulled the east wall out 1 1/2 feet and the big one pulled out the west wall 1 1/2 inches. But, it took my grandmother's house trailer that was here - completely. The frame was across Split Stump road turned completely around and wrapped around a tree stump. There was a green thread everywhere and we liked to never have figured it out but it was her carpet. We had put her in a nursing home only a few months prior.
Our old barn collapsed, of course. We lost several rabbits and ended up with an extra leghorn rooster. We had heavy type chickens and bantys. We never did find where he came from. The front door of the house (which I shut prior to the storm - dumb!) was torn out frame and all. Broke out a storm window. Stephanie and I hid in the cellar of the basement. People at Nabb that were watching said the little tornado across the creek set down and pulled up then set down again. I kept telling Stephanie (she was 5 years old) during the storm "just a second, just a second, they say they just last a few seconds" when I realized I had said it so many times that it was more than a few seconds.
Steve had a frame up for a new barn, but it took it down too. I saw a bale of straw come toward the window that I was standing in at the basement (trying to see this big black cloud from our woods. I never saw it, just heard it. I didn't look toward the west - I was looking more southwest) turning end for end. That was when I decided I needed to get into the cellar too with Stephanie in case something came through the window and knocked me out or killed me then Stephanie would be by herself. After the door was blown out, everything came down to the basement and out the basement window. I had the basement windows opened. It was so humid and hot that day. Steve's jeans were hanging in the closet and I had some straight pins out and when he put his jeans on, the straight pins were in his pocket.
Our chimney was twisted. Roof off of one side of the house. Big hole in the roof. A big Thunderstorm came in the night and Steve was out on top of the roof trying to cover with plastic as the rain was coming down so hard we had cans trying to catch the water. We lost a chest of drawers that came with my ancestors across the Cumberland Gap from North Carolina. It was solid cherry. We salvaged the wood out of it and have made shelves in our chimney for kerosene lamps to set on.
Of course, our electric wires were all torn down from the house. The electric company worked into the wee hours here at our house to get these big lines back up.
We lost a parakeet. He was sucked out of the house when his cage fell in the floor. I had just watered my houseplants and the water was sucked out of them and the soil was stuck to the walls of the living room. Our dog was missing several hours. She finally came back, which we didn't expect.
The State Policeman got here after I carried Stephanie outside. He was so torn up emotionally. He had tried to out run it to warn people. He dropped his head and beat on the steering wheel after he asked if we were okay.
Steve was coming home from Madison where he worked and he saw the tornado and the closer he got to home he realized it had to have hit us. He tried 3 ways to get home and finally ended up coming out on 3 and parking the car at Split Stump Cemetery and running the rest of the way here.
Someone warned me of the tornado though - I went to the front door when there were some dancing white clouds. Very thin - just couldn't get organized as a cloud. Sun was shining bright and beautiful blue sky. But, I noticed this noise in the woods and I thought "My! There is a lot of wind coming from the woods." As soon as I thought it, Someone (Guardian Angel, God) said, "Notice the trees are not moving." They said it as plain as day but it was in my head. No loud voice that someone else would have heard, but they were just talking to me. I hope I never forget that. Someone was protecting Stephanie and me that day. Someone protected so many people that day with no advance warning.
Another weird thing - I had a frozen turkey in the freezer of Mamaw's refrigerator. The next day we found the freezer turned upside down with the door shut in the fence row. We opened it, and the freezer door was gone. But, the turkey was still there.
And, there was an old, heavy cedar chest of Mamaw's stored in the barn, setting on plastic and covered with plastic. It had a tarp folded up on top of it. The tarp was still folded but on the ground. We finally found a few pieces of the cedar next to the creek. Never did find the rest.
That was the third, yes third, tornado that went through Split Stump Cemetery that we have found in historical material.
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