April 3rd, 1974 I will always remember

[KWilt43atbuzz]

I was 7 yrs old and living in Shepherdsville, KY. I remember my Dad gathering the family into the basement(with only a silver transistor radio in tow) as to that point the worst day of Tornadoes in the US was underway.

Thankfully our neighborhood was spared but many in Kentucky and in surrounding states were not.

Thank you Jesus and Happy Good Friday to you all.

He is Risen!

PS I just saw where parts of the state were hit by strong Thunderstorms this morning and a fire broke out at GE.

Stay safe Ky.



This post was edited on 4/3 11:00 AM by KWilt43atbuzz

This post was edited on 4/3 11:03 AM by KWilt43atbuzz

This post was edited on 4/3 12:30 PM by KWilt43atbuzz

 

[Mojocat]

Me, too. I was almost 7 and living in E-town. That day did a number on me - for the next several years, even the hint of rain caused a little bit of terror.....

And yes, Good Friday to all!

 

[FlCATFan]

Thanks for the reminder. I was recently married and living with my new wife on Anniston Drive. We didn't have a basement but were really wanting one that night.

 

[*CatinIL*]

This post was edited on 4/3 11:16 AM by *CatinIL*

 

[Indyadolph]

Yep!
7th grade, walking home from school - Butler H.S. in lively Shively - and getting absolutely drenched it was raining so hard.
By the time I got home, I learned about all the havoc that Mother Nature had just caused. So I was literally walking home from school when those tornados were ripping through L'ville and other parts of the state.

The craziest thing I ever heard about those April 3rd tornados was this: One of the tornados tore up part of a school in L'ville. And a teacher's grade book was found the next day.....in Cincinnati.!!!!

GO BIG BLUE!!!!!!!!!

 

[ZZBlueComet]

I was 10, sounded like hell coming to earth - I remember the sky was illuminated all night and getting under a couch, dad said he felt the walls moving, will never forget it.

 

[Indyadolph]

Wow!
Unique pics CatinIL. I would say "cool" pics but, nah, not really!!! I'll stick with unique.

 

[YouKay]

I was 16 and a senior in high school in Lexington. I was just home from school and watching WLW-TV when they stuck a camera out the window and showed a huge tornado hitting Cincinnati. Then we heard on the radio about the one that hit Brandenburg. They kept coming closer and closer to us all afternoon. We lost power at about 6:30 and I panicked. There were tornadoes all around us. My sister went to EKU and my brother lived in Louisville; both were very close to the ones that hit there. My parents would not leave the house, which had no basement and an open floor plan. So I spent the entire night in my neighbor's basement, terrified.

That day freaked me out so badly that I could not sleep with the lights out for months. Still gives me butterflies in my stomach to recall it, even 40 years later.

 

[*CatinIL*]

12 years old back then. I was playing the Sub-Search video game at the Southland Bowling lanes when the power went out...I got robbed out of a game.

I was a long night and my dad was sitting in the car listening to the radio broadcast and the reports coming out of Louisville, Frankfort, Brandenburg, Stamping Ground, Jett Town, Xenia...a crazy day/night for sure.

 

[OldBlueNuts]

I was 12 and we were at church that early evening. I remember having to crawl under
the pews and even in my fear was amazed at the amount of chewing gum under there.
Couldn't believe people actually did that in a church!

Lexington was much more fortunate than other towns. Thoughts to all those who lost a
loved one that fateful day.

 

[Steelers2012]

I've lived in Brandenburg, KY since 1968. There were 31 lives lost that day. Fortunately, our home was not in the path of the tornado. That day never passes in Brandenburg without a lot of remembering, and uneasiness. It seems it's almost always another stormy April 3rd.

 

[J_Dee]

I wasn't born yet in '74 but I grew up near there and I've heard many tales about that night, particularly from my dad's family in Piney Grove.

As a kid (1980s), every single time a big storm hit, my grandparents would come over and my family would sequester ourselves in the basement (underground) with a couple of radios. My dad forbade us to go upstairs, but from time to time I'd sneak up. During a storm it felt like the upstairs was another world, distant and ominous, because of the dark, the storm, and the tales of tornadoes that were always in the forefront of my mind during those circumstances.

To second OldBlueNuts, thoughts to all those who've lost a loved one in a storm.

 

[KYCAT78]

I was a Senior in high school living in Etown and getting ready to go to UK. I was working at the Transit gas station when the temperature dropped about 15 degrees for a couple of minutes and then returned to the previous temp. I remember thinking that was weird when the announcement came over the radio that a tornado had hit Brandenburg and had leveled it. That day is sort of like the day that President Kennedy was killed you never forget where and what you were doing.

 

[majgun]

I was in the 5th grade and living in Meade county. My brother (who was a senior at Meade County High School) and I were in Radcliff when it hit. The storm there was so memorable. We heard on the radio that the tornado had struck and that there was significant damage. We went down to Brandenburg that evening to assist with our church gruop and couldn't believe what he saw. Such devastation. Meade County is/was a great place to grow up.

 

[Cawood86]

Remember it well. The aftermath was shocking. Cows hanging in trees. Fences rolled up like a ball of twine. Surreal.

 

[Century Cat]

I was 8 years old, living in St. Matthews. Luckily we weren't hit but I remember it well. I also remember being creeped by the devastation close by us for a couple of years.

 

[wjbzone]

I lived on the opposite side of Frankfort from where the tornado hit in 1974. I remember the golf ball size hail storm dented all the cars in the neighborhood I lived in.

Xenia, Ohio got hit the same day in 1974.

I was in Xenia September 20, 2000 when a tornado followed almost the same path as the 1974 tornado in Xenia.

 

[BoulderCat]

I knew it was Good Friday of course, but hadn't thought about the date. I was a junior in HS, and my family just happened to be visiting friends in Louisville. I'm guess I was probably on spring break. We saw some of what occurred from the basement of their house. It never got too close to their house, but it was still scary. That was the first tornado I ever saw, and it was a big one. F4 I believe.

 

[Willy4UK]

April 3rd, 1975. 8 days before I was to be born. I will always remember ticklin' my mom's uterus.

 

[Desperado_1955]

Remember it well. I was in college when the twisters hit. Was a wild night.

 

[Century Cat]

I'm pretty sure it was a Tuesday. Also my dad's birthday. And though we lived in St. Matthews at the time, the night before we had just moved a bunch of stuff to our new house in Northfield (also in Louisville, 10 minutes away), with plans to move in that upcoming weekend. Northfield ended up being among the harder hit areas in Louisville, appeared in Life magazine, etc. We weren't able to move in for another 6 months but the neighborhood didn't fully recover for at least 2 years.


Edit: it was a Wednesday.






This post was edited on 4/3 3:11 PM by Century Cat

 

[Joe Buck]

Like Steelers, I too have lived in Brandenburg basically my whole life. Of the 31 we lost here 2 were in my class. Needless to say the anniversary never passes here without a lot of people reflecting back on that horrible day.

 

[Tannerdad]

Very young and working for Standard Oil Co at 7th and Magazine. There were only a few of us in the building. Lost pwer for a time. We had transistor radios but it was maddening because I could not reach my family because land lines were down. No cellular those days. It was hours before I could verify all was well. Rode with a friend home and we took the "scenic" tour where we could. Never seen anything like it. Trees, buildings, huge signs....mangled. Still scares me when we have big storms.

 

[BlueKel]

Not quite 6 yet. Was at freaking ground zero. I was at my aunt and uncle's house, with my cousins babysitting me. Eastern Parkway, about 2 blocks west of Bardstown Road. We went into the cellar way late - seems like nobody really knew to take cover. Afterwards, I remember a red sports car right out in front o their house with a tree on it. Being the mental heavyweights they were, they took me walking down Bardstown Road shortly after. Talk about a war zone.

We lived a few blocks from there, and it seems like we didn't have electricity for a couple of weeks, and that schools were closed for a couple of weeks? I don't recall.

Also, took a ride through Cherokee Park in the back of a pickup (remember those days?!!)...wow. So many trees gone.

Scared me to death of storms for a long, long time. I was the first one in the basement at least into my 20s.

 

[Century Cat]

The weird thing is that it has made me feel immune to tornadoes as an adult. I remember my dad telling me at that time, "you'll probably live your whole life without being this close to another tornado" - so I took that to heart, probably to a fault.

It's strange how thoughts become ingrained when we are kids, because after a couple of years of anxiety, I've always felt impervious to storms since I grew up - kind of the "lightning never strikes the same place twice" [even though it does] sort of thing. I don't know if that's good or bad.

 

[natron20]

I wasn't around yet, but I've heard the stories.

Did relief work in West Liberty and Moore, Oklahoma a few days after those tornados, and was there when the second wave rolled through that killed the guy from that storm chasers show. Bottom line, Mother Nature is a mean beast.

 

[Beavis606]

I was 11. We lived in student family housing at EKU and *everybody* watched it from their yards and porches. I don't think anyone respected how dangerous tornadoes could be. I didn't, even after we went out the next morning and looked at the aftermath. What sticks with me to this day is how pieces of straw were thrown through 4x4 fence posts.

I was like Pantone in that I didn't really respect tornadoes. That changed in the last 15 years as we've had 3 touch down here. One of them touched down less than a half mile away, jumped my house and business, then touched down a half mile away on the other side.

 

[bigbluedon]

I was 21 and watched it roll up and over my garage before I made a dash for the basement. Two minutes later when things were quiet we went upstairs to find our house and garage spared but my next door neighbor had 7 huge walnut trees completely uprooted and then it went over a house across the street and damaged their roof and then headed to Cherokee Park where it did extensive damage.

It was the scariest thing I have ever seen and I hope never to see it again. The devastation this tornado did was unreal and it was widespread. I am very grateful to be alive after that one.

 

[Blueisbest]

My dad worked on Preston Highway near Audubon Park. The tornado had just blasted Freedom Hall and was headed straight for his place of business. It jumped over his building near the railroad overpass and landed in Audubon Park and resumed it's path of destruction.

He said that he had no place to go to escape the tornado and ended up watching it pass over him and land practically across the street. He said that was the most frightening thing he ever saw.

I was about 14 at the time and was playing basketball at Wesley Community House in Butchertown when they made all of us go into the basement. We weren't near the tornadoes path but there were a lot of storms that day.

 

[Free_Salato_Blue]

Not only there was a a lot but they stayed on the ground for an unusual amount of time.
Like that one in upper Indiana went for hundreds of miles.
On my dad's farm in central KY, down burst winds flattened a barn with debris scattered for hundreds of yards.

 

[Desperado_1955]

Originally posted by ukbob:
Very young and working for Standard Oil Co at 7th and Magazine. There were only a few of us in the building. Lost pwer for a time. We had transistor radios but it was maddening because I could not reach my family because land lines were down. No cellular those days. It was hours before I could verify all was well. Rode with a friend home and we took the "scenic" tour where we could. Never seen anything like it. Trees, buildings, huge signs....mangled. Still scares me when we have big storms.

Your experience was really close to mine, Bob. There was NO way to get in touch with anyone back home while I was at school, so neither my folks or I could find out if everyone was ok. We huddled in a basement with a transistor radio to catch whatever news we could. Some of the stations were being powered by generators just to be able to broadcast. They cancelled classes the rest of the week, so we drove home, and on the way I stopped along I-75 where a tornado crossed over and twisted a huge tree completely off like it was a toothpick. I grabbed a piece of the tree and kept it as a souvenir.

 

[dalehollow]

13 years old at the time. A school friend was spending the night and being young boys we were walking around in the woods a couple of hours before the tornado hit. We went to a ridge where we could see the lake and notice the water white capping due to the wind and mentioned the wind was really up that evening. Got back home finished supper when my mother asked my dad to look at the sky. They both said they could see the tornado and when it touched down the sky turned black from everything it was tearing up. Parents said everyone get under the house "we only had a crawl space" dad tried to open the front door to get out of the house but the wind had gotten so strong he was unable to get the door open. We all ran to the back door got out and I remember the wind blowing so hard as we were going into the crawl space, then in a minute the sky turned bright and the sun was out and dad said it is ok to go back up. The lights were out but with daylight us boys started playing some basketball. Less than a hour later my friends mom came over and she was terrified, said a neighbors house was blown away but the family survived because that had a basement. Said my uncles place was hit so we load up to go see it was 1 mile away from us. Those images will last my lifetime.The storms headed for Clinton County and unfortunatly lives were lost over there. The next day I noticed a telephone pole that had a limb thru it, that is just amazing to know the force of nature.

 

[elwood_blue]

I lived in Rineyville. I was 3 and a half, and I remember my mom holding me in the basement while she was crying. My grandparents and some cousins were there as well. It didn't really scare me at the time, but riding around with my grandpa the next day and witnessing the aftermath made me understand. It touched down a few miles from us, lifted, and then touched back down in Etown.