50 Years Later, Super Outbreak of Tornadoes Is Remembered in Xenia, Ohio

XENIA, Ohio–April 3, 1974. 4:39 p.m. The clock that is now on display at the Greene County Historical Society is frozen in time and has been for 50 years. Like this year, April 3 fell on a Wednesday in 1974. On that day, life was forever altered in my hometown of Xenia, Ohio. Those of us who lived in Xenia and are old enough to remember vividly recall where we were when the clocks stopped at 4:39 p.m. That is when a tornado packing 300 miles-per-hour winds splintered neighborhoods, reduced schools and businesses to piles of rubble, shredded graceful Victorian homes like paper dollhouses, and ripped apart historic landmarks that had stood for more than a century. Xenia was caught in the grip of one of the most violent single-day tornado outbreaks ever to strike North America....