Xenia, Ohio Tornado Marks Its 34th Anniversary

For those that remember it, April 3, marks the 34th anniversary of the Xenia Tornado. It was the tornado that wreaked havoc on an innocent city. A category F5 tornado tore its way through town killing 32 people. It was just one of 148 tornadoes that spawned across 13 different states. The two mile wide tornado destroyed half the schools in the city and ripped almost every church from its foundation.

The tornado hit around 4:30 in the afternoon, a blessed hour after the schools were let out. My brother was in first grade at McKinley Elementary. It was one of the schools that were destroyed. My neighborhood, Arrowhead, was the hardest hit neighborhoods in the city.

It was an ordinary afternoon on my street. School had just ended and kids were riding their bikes back and forth. Laughter could be heard in the air. My father sat in the garage strumming his guitar; my brother was with him. I remember riding my tricycle in the driveway and looking at the "big kids" riding their bikes in the street. My mom was in the house packing for our annual trip to Texas. Everything seemed fine. It was a picture perfect day.

Our neighbor was weeding her flower bed across the street. She yelled across the street to my Dad that the storm seemed to be moving in quickly. My dad looked up and saw a huge black cloud. He didn't pay much attention, assuming that it was a late afternoon shower. He continued to play his guitar watching me ride in circles in the driveway. After a few moments, a commotion could be heard up the street. Neighbors were running frantically up and down the street screaming, "Tornado! Tornado!"

My dad jumped up and looked toward the sky. He grabbed me off my tricycle and took me inside. He called for my mom. They were looking out the back window and thought that whatever it was, it was too big to be a tornado.

Within seconds, a tree barreled over our house. I remember them standing there in disbelief for a second. Then he scooped me up in one motion, ran toward the hallway and set me down. I remember him looking at me with a look that I had never seen in his eyes before and telling me not to move. My mom got in the hallway with me as he ran outside to get my brother.

He came back and put him on one side of me; my mom was on the other side. He put a mattress on top of us. Just then our phone rang. It was a good friend and neighbor of ours. She was home alone with her baby and frantic. She didn't know what to do and my dad knew he needed to go help her.

At that moment we heard a roar that sounded as if a train was racing on its track toward our house. The tornado was getting closer. My mother didn't want my father to leave, but he went anyway. She had no one to help her.

It seemed like hours until he returned. He ran in and told my mother that it was here. He crawled under the mattress with us and laid his body on top of ours. He began praying. I remember him praying and laying there listening to him and the wind. The winds were so loud we could barely hear his voice. Then, very eerily, it became incredibly quiet. No one spoke. All of a sudden out of nowhere, a rush of horrifying winds seemed as if it were tearing our roof off. We held on to each other as tight as we could. I remember hearing things being thrown against our house, and objects hitting the roof. We all lay together under my dad and the mattress. No one moved.

And then, as quick as it came, it was gone. It was intensely quiet. There was not a sound in the air. We stayed there for a few more minutes, unsure if it was really over. My dad was the first to speak, telling us to stay there while he went and checked to see what the outside was like.

As we waited for my father to return, we began hearing voices outside, first a few, then many. It seemed like everyone was yelling, crying, and shouting commands at one another. My father came in and told us it was over.

We slowly came from underneath the mattress. Amazingly, our house was still standing. My parents were looking out the back window shocked. The neighborhood that used to be behind us, across the field, was gone. Every house lay in a pile of lumber. It was as if they imploded. They actually looked as though a bull dozer stacked each house into its own neat little heap. We watched as people came outside screaming frantically for their friends and family. Debris was everywhere. Our back fence was gone, as if we never had one.

My mom and dad went outside and joined everyone. They were all in shock at the devastation. My dad immediately joined the men in a neighborhood search. They spent hours going through piles of wood, what use to be houses, looking for people. He found some; some dead, others alive.

A tornado devastated my town that afternoon. It became a day that I have not forgotten. Even though I was pretty young when it happened, I can't believe the impact it has had on my life; all of our lives. Whenever I see or hear a tornado warning now, I instinctively think about Xenia. I immediately get nervous and pray that what happened 34 years ago never repeats itself.