Tornado! Day of the 100 tornadoes...

Although one hundred forty-six tornadoes in a twenty-four hour period are different than a deadly, insidious virus, I cannot help but see similarities between the two, I live now to see, and what I lived through on that horrific spring day in 1974.

I was especially reminded of this last night, as a very powerful storm system unleashed tornado warnings, as the shrill LOUD tornado sirens were going off, while I hunkered down in my bathtub...waiting.🥺

On 3 April 1974, an extraordinary, very powerful weather phenomena rapidly unfolded forecasters had never seen before, or since.  Three dangerous weather systems were about to collide.  Right over Kentucky.😱

Before the National Weather Service could issue the first tornado warning, they began touching down.  The first hit at 2:45pm, and continued one after another all through the night.  Over 100 tornadoes hit Kentucky with an astounding total of 146 tornadoes in Kentucky and six other states.  There were five Category 5 tornadoes, which are extremely deadly, dangerous, and destructive.

The first tornado was a Category 5, which plowed into 
the small town of Brandenburg, Kentucky, wiping it off 
the map.  The other two Category 5 tornadoes plowed into Louisville, where I was living then, and the small town of Stamping Ground, Kentucky, wiping Stamping Ground off the map.  Very few of the tornadoes touching down during that terrible night, were lower than Category 3, which is extremely dangerous too.🥴

In and earlier blog I told about my friend Ella, who owned the florist and gift shop where I worked as I finished high school where my artwork was being sold too.  We heard on the radio when the tornado that hit Louisville began its path of destruction in the southern corner of the county.  It was 4pm.  Another thing about these tornadoes, is they stayed on the ground a long time, which was very unusual and why they became even more destructive.  Louisville's tornado was on the ground 37 minutes and traveled 25 miles, crossing the Ohio River which tornadoes never do without weakening.  Not this one!  It kept going far into southern Indiana cutting a terrible swath of destruction before finally dissipating. 

Because it was near time for rush hour traffic to begin, Louisville had a police officer pilot who monitored traffic from a helicopter.  So due to his safe position, he was able to give a non-stop broadcast where the tornado was hitting, and the horrific destruction he was seeing.

It hit Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, yet thankfully, spared the Twin Spires, but took out empty horse barns, destroyed the landscaping, and did other significant damage.  Then the tornado completely destroyed Cherokee Park.  In one moment thousands of trees a hundred years old or more, were gone.  It also destroyed the water plant which supplied all of Louisville's water.

Ella and I were in the north eastern part of the county, and had gone outside.  The massive tornado could clearly be seen slowly heading northeast.  At that point we were about ten miles from the tornado's path, yet could hear it's loud roar.  We saw debris swirling high up around it, and the many sparks and fires from power lines and gas lines as it destroyed them.

We just stood there watching this thing...just totally transfixed.  Wordless.😱

"Holy shit, it...it is so HUGE!" I said, when I finally had words.  

Ella said, "I've never seen one so...so...this big before."

"I doubt anyone else has either."

Then it turned somewhat.  Our direction.

"Uh Ella, don't you think we should go to the basement?"

"Hell yes!  NOW!"😱

The roar was intense, the building violently shook, power lines snapped, windows broke, then it shifted, continuing on the same north eastward path it had been on sparing us further damage.  The power went out.  But thankfully we still had the radio.  And batteries.

By then the National Weather Service knew Kentucky was in for it, and we were ordered to remain where we were if it was safe.  But suddenly "safe" seemed quite elusive in light of the many more tornadoes still touching down all around us...some in the same places already hit.

All through the night police, fire, and ambulance sirens kept blaring.  Besides the National Weather Service had to keep blaring its alarm on the radio too as tornado after tornado struck, then urgently repeating again and again, "Take cover NOW!"  National radio programs broadcast during the night cancelled their regularly scheduled programs focusing instead on Kentucky all night.  

Obviously we, nor most of Kentucky slept.  The tornadoes continued well into daylight the next morning.  Kentucky was forever changed.  Hundreds were killed.  Thousands lost everything.  Schools, everything closed.  Those of us who lived through it were forever changed.

Two tornadoes hit close to the farm where I boarded Selah.  Thankfully the horses were fine.  Just part of the barn roof was gone.  However, it was days before I could even get out there, because so many roads remained impassable due to fallen trees and power lines.  

Louisville was a horrible mess, much of it destroyed.  Video taken the next day from a helicopter showing the whole path the tornado took.  It was both astounding and terribly heartbreaking because the path was not only very long but miles wide.

It was the same in Brandenburg and Stamping Ground where the two other Category 5 tornadoes struck.  Not even counting all the other tornadoes that hit Kentucky and beyond.  The little town of Xenia, Ohio, just across the Ohio River from Kentucky was hit by one of the Category 5 tornadoes, and it too, was wiped off the map with a large loss of life.

As in all situations like this, good comes shining forth.  Since this tragedy struck only three weeks before The Kentucky Derby, there was talk of having to do the unthinkable...cancelling it.  The famous tulips it is also known for were all gone, along with the other severe damage.  Then a very amazing thing happened.  A plane from the Netherlands arrived in Louisville one day, loaded with tulips, and uplifted the city.  The Derby would go on.

One serious thing officials realized in the aftermath, was how lacking a warning system we had for tornadoes.  Immediately, a change happened.  A huge one.  The other tornado alley states like Kentucky took notice of what was done, and changed their warning systems based upon ours.  Hundreds of tall tornado sirens were installed throughout the whole state, so that no matter where anyone is in Kentucky, if a siren goes off, it is heard because there are so many of them strategically located from one end of the state to the other.  And they have saved lives many times since, including mine.  In addition, the state has always invested in the latest weather technology regardless of cost.   

Obviously many thousand more lives have been lost and continue to be lost due to the virus, shattering hearts around the world.  And for now, we are helpless to stop it, aside from sheltering in place.  

Since spring also means tornado season in Kentucky, hopefully for some of us, our place we are sheltering in due to the virus, will remain in place.🥴