The Day of the Killer Tornadoes by John Reeves (diy ebook reader txt) 📕

Back in 1974 it was a different place and time. The first week of April brought in unusually warm winds from the south. We were at grandma's house playing in the front yard. I can sit back even today remembering how good she was to all of us heathens. It always seemed that when grandma cooked on of her pies the whole neighborhood could smell it. There was a time in my life I thought she might be magic, she could always make me feel better no matter how I might be hurting. She loved me but, her feelings extended out to all the kids.
I never met my grandfather, he was killed in the second World War. They sent him back in a wooden box leaving my grandma alone. she never remarried, she always said he was the only man she could ever love like that. All of us kids never noticed her not having a husband, we loved her for what we knew the way it was, not how it had been. Grandma remembered how things had been before the war. Everyone was poor and, in a state of need. The war actually brought the country back, so my grandma always understood her husband died for a cause. We all believed that grandpa was looking down from heaven, making sure we did right.

We were playing outside when my brother noticed the sky had become dark. The warm air had a chill about it that hadn't been there an hour before. My grandma was inside watching news channel 31. There were storms moving in from the west. We had no idea there were bad storms on the way but, soon the winds picked up like we hadn't seen before. Grandma called us all up to the front porch were we watched the weather deteriorate. There was a distant thunder echoing through the mountains. The lights flickered a couple of time before there was no power. Bob Barron and, the 31 news channel was gone.
The winds were blowing very intensely, as my mother had been on her way home from work to pick us up. I became worried she was in the elements which had become increasingly worse. The tornado alarm sounded and, it might have been right then that I realized that is was bad. The sky had a greenish tinge to it that said, "any minute now a tornado could fall."
I watched the clouds rotate in a circular motion. I had no idea ten miles away my friends house had just been blown away by a tornado. I could see the funnel cloud of in the distance but, It wasn't moving toward grandma's house. The thing I didn't know is there had been five different funnels spotted. I was only seeing one. Things were starting to blow out into the street, garbage cans, lawn chairs, anything that wasn't bolted down. The power of the winds was startling to me, I'd never seen anything like it before.
I had no clue these storms had been coming out of Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and south into Texas. The storms covered most of the traditional tornado heavy spots, but also as far north as Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. The damage just south was catastrophic in Kentucky, Tennessee, on into Alabama where we were located.
The sky had become black over the top of us, those same evil clouds had produced tornadoes that had killed several people just west of us. Cars had been thrown miles from where they were picked up. Buildings that had withstood decades of storms were torn from their foundations and, scattered among the city. The number of tornadoes in the city had become thirteen. They were boring through town with no mercy for anyone.
It was if mother nature had declared war, the peaceful warm day had become an angry monster looking to devour our small Alabama town. Her bombs of wind and rain belted grandma's house, the only thing she had left from her husband. Uncle Ted came inside grandma's house with horrible news. He's seen the tornado wipe a whole street of houses of the map. It mangled the grocery store as it tore across the area of mass destruction.


Perhaps some of them intended to pray to God, but the fact was there wasn't much time to fit that in. Besides the church wasn't spared of damage, so I don't think God really gave a damn. The train was picked up off the tracks and, sat down right beside them. Towns that once existed were gone, with nothing to remind you that they'd ever been there. The thought of not knowing if loved ones were alright, or when the next gust of wind might be the last.
The wind died down, dialed back a notch as if to say "It's all over now." Only to be followed by the most horrible winds I had seen. Windows shattered from grandma's house, like so many people's dreams of surviving through the night. Outside the crumbling sound and, I knew it was the neighbor's homes being removed by nature. Telling them in the most harsh way they could no longer live there. Somewhere among the living hell it seemed I was in there was the thought if my house was there? Was my mom and dad alive? Was I even going to survive the destructive powers of mother nature? The fear couldn't get worse, I mean at that point I hadn't been so afraid of something before that I could feel it to my inner core. There was not any way for me to block it out of my mind, the changing sounds of the winds reminded me constantly it wasn't going to be alright.

When it was over the town looked like a war zone. All my family was alive, my grandma's house still stood the on McKinley avenue but, others weren't so lucky, family members dead, homes destroyed, and lives devastated. 173 people across the country lost their lives, millions of dollars in damage. I know after all these years that I was lucky and, that hopefully I'll never see a storm of that magnitude again.

Text: Bob Barron Weatherman news channel 31 ABC affiliate.
Publication Date: 02-04-2010

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Dedication:
315 people who died in the tragic tornado outbreak.