AP Was There: A 1974 tornado in Xenia, Ohio, kills 32 and levels half the city
XENIA, OH — EDITOR’S NOTE — On April 3, 1974, a fierce tornado ripped through Xenia, Ohio, without warning, killing 32 people, injuring hundreds and leveling half the city of 25,000. Hundreds became homeless. Nearby Wilberforce, home to Central State University, was also hit with deadly violence. Afterwards, President Richard Nixon made an unannounced visit to Xenia as the Watergate scandal unfolded in Washington.
The It was considered the worst outbreak in US history. for almost 40 years. It now ranks second after an outbreak in 2011. State and federal weather warning systems, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Radio, were both improved after the 1974 event.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine was in Xenia during the storm. The 77-year-old Republican told The Associated Press that he was working in the city that day as an assistant attorney general. From the porch of their building, his group spotted the funnel on the horizon and took cover in the basement. “It sounded like a freight train was passing by,” he said. When they emerged, the roof of the structure was gone and the city was in ruins.
DeWine’s wife was home on their farm in Cedarville with three young children and one on the way. “It was just really dark and windy,” she said. “It was not a normal storm, we knew that. That’s why we thought we had to take cover.” The force of the wind made it impossible for Fran DeWine to open the door leading to the basement, so they crouched under a dining room table. When she emerged, both of her neighbors’ barns were being demolished.
The DeWines participated in the rescue and cleanup operation over the next few days, collecting home video footage that they provided to AP. That included very close access to Nixon as he passed through the streets. “I think what you get out of it is how fragile life is, and how things can change so very, very quickly,” the governor said.
On the 50th anniversary of the Xenia tornado, AP is republishing a version of the original, unscripted report from the scene.
Spring tornadoes cut a murderous swath through southwestern Ohio Wednesday night, killing at least 35 people, injuring about 500 and destroying millions of dollars in property.
It looked like the toll would rise even further.
The Ohio Highway Patrol said there were unconfirmed reports of 40 to 50 missing in this Greene County city of 25,000 and reported five more deaths than the number of rescuers listed.
By mid-morning, workers sifting through the rubble of Xenia said 30 people had been killed in the destroyer that destroyed an estimated half of the city.
Another funnel storm killed five people and injured more than 200 in Cincinnati.
One, perhaps two, people were killed when the winding funnel destroyed Central State University, a mile northeast of Xenia.
In Cincinnati, five people were killed and more than 200 injured.
An estimated 75 percent of the Central State campus was destroyed or severely damaged. President Charles Newsom closed the school.
Police Chief Ray Jordan estimates that Xenia is 50 percent demolished.
Damage at Cincinnati is estimated at up to $20 million.
Governor John Gilligan sent more than 2,500 National Guard troops to devastated areas and asked the federal government to declare that part of southwestern Ohio a disaster area.
At Xenia, a spokesperson for Green Memorial Hospital said the injured arrived “in all sorts of things – cars, ambulances and trucks. They brought in bodies on table tops, doors and shelves. The emergency room was packed.”
A National Guard paramedic who flew over the devastated area, Spec. 5 Bob Chapman of Columbus said it “looked half a mile wide and three to five miles long. There was nothing.”
Cincinnati Mayor Theodore M. Berry said the damage to parts of his city affected by the twisters “was tremendous. It was a miracle that so many trees were missing houses, buildings and people.”
Officials at Xenia said more than 1,000 people were homeless. Most were housed in a grocery store and a YMCA.
“I lived through the Second World War, and this is worse than all the bombings in Germany,” said a witness to the Xenia disaster.
National Guard troops provided medical assistance, provided communications, protected against looting and helped with cleanup.
The devastation occurred barely a week before the ninth anniversary of the Palm Sunday tornadoes of April 11, 1965, which killed 250 people and resulted in the most property damage ever reported from such storms in Ohio.
Wednesday’s tornadoes, accompanied by driving rain and gale-force winds, first tore through Sayler Park and the Cincinnati suburbs of Prince Hill and then north of the city to Blue Ash, Sharonville and Elmwood.
The deadly funnels then headed northeast along US 42, straight through Lebanon, leveling much of Xenia and encircling London.
Wilberforce, Cedarville and Selma were hit along the way.
Gilligan almost immediately ordered 250 Ohio National Guardsmen deployed to Xenia, and by midnight 1,445 men were employed, more than half of them in Xenia, the rest in the Southwest. Another 1,000 have been activated today.
The National Weather Service once had a tornado warning in effect for all of Ohio on Wednesday. But the damage had already been done.
The Xenia Hotel and the city’s high schools were demolished. The armory, whose roof had collapsed, was put into use. A freight train, 15 of which had fallen off the tracks, blocked an intersection with US 35.
Sayler Park, on the banks of the Ohio River, bore the brunt of the Cincinnati storm.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene said: “Three square blocks, every house is gone.”
At one point, a fire raged out of control in a Cincinnati suburb as a result of the storm damage.
Damage was also reported in London, northeast of Xenia. The top of the Madison County Courthouse was blown off, a witness said, and there were reports that all businesses along the city’s main street were damaged.
More than 100 homes in Butler County’s Union Township were affected, authorities said, and there were reports of destruction from Green Township, Westchester, Pisgah and Mason.
Emergency hospitals were set up in Xenia and Cincinnati, but not until dozens of injured people had been transported to surrounding communities. Many of the injured at Xenia were taken to hospitals in Dayton.
Officials at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton opened their hospital to tornado victims and sent a force of medical specialists to Xenia.
National Guard members were on duty in many communities affected by the storm to prevent looting.