The Enigma Tornado Outbreak of 1884

Meteorologists today use a tornado intensity scale called the Enhanced Fujita Scale to assess a tornado's strength, use satellites and doppler radar to track storm cells and see tornadoes form, and and use “storm chasers” to follow the paths of tornadoes. But none of that was around in 1884. In 1884 there was nothing but the reports by survivors. Those reports suggest a tornado outbreak on a massive scale, and damage that devastated whole communities, but leave a picture of what might have been one of the worst tornado outbreaks in history that is so incomplete that the true scale of the storm is a mystery, and so is called “the enigma tornado outbreak.”
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This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As very few images of the actual event are available in the Public Domain, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.
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[@dennistaylor2964]

Having survived a tornado, Windsor Locks Ct, 1979, I can tell there is no more terrifying event to live through. One has no control over one's fate as buildings are destroyed, debris is flung around and the roar persists. In my case the large aircraft hangar I was in was destroyed, while aircraft flew through it like so many tinker toys. Meanwhile a half a mile away, across the airport people were completely unaware of what had happened.

[@Manigo1743]

So now you have moved to a place where there are no tornados, right?

[@asahearts1]

​@@Manigo1743Braindead comment

[@monicacall7532]

I also lived through a tornado when I was 12. I’m not sure which was more frightening, the sound or the sight of roofs, trees, garbage cans etc flying through the air. Even though it happened fairly quickly it felt like time stood still while it happened. This happened in Utah which is not known as a place that regularly has tornadoes.

[@Parents_of_Twins]

Thank God you lived to tell the story. I have only seen a tornado starting to drop and that was scary enough.

[@ImWearingPantsNow]

Bradley? ...first thing I think when I hear Windsor Locks, 1979. Regardless, glad you survived. I can't imagine the terror...

[@user-sx4ou6kc9d]

Joplin, Mo. Missed us by 4 blocks. My grandma's house (she passed the year before), was totally gone. It even removed the top 4 layers of cinder blocks into the basement, and ripped the gas and water lines out of the ground. Her house was ground zero, and only 10 blocks away.

[@donQpublic]

I’m glad that you’re still here to share this.

[@Mrbfgray]

Methane--they all farted too much back then, plus paying forward for future SUV crisis.

[@lorddeez1385]

Joplin was insane. Sorry you had to go through that, glad you are still here

[@codybailey855]

The Spring of 2011 was absolutely crazy. It seemed like we were having at least one tornado a week. My unit, that was based in Joplin, had just returned from a deployment. Thank God we had full accountability. It seemed everyone knew someone that had been killed, injured, or made homeless.

[@MarianneKat]

A nurse I knew went to report to work after Joplin only to find the hospital needing rescuing😢

[@katemaloney4296]

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about the tornado outbreak in South Dakota around that same time. She said she wasn't writing history, but I think she would be amazed at how accurate her memory was and how those events are still talked about.

[@EarlyMusicDiva]

Yes, her description in "These Happy Golden Years" is an amazing one!

[@don1031]

As a young boy in Nebraska, it was my task from time to time to climb to the top of our windmill and grease the gears. One time, I do not know the year, I was working up there when I was surprised to see the windmill fan go in the opposite direction it should have. Looking around and up I saw a funnel cloud. SO MUCH could have gone wrong in that situation! I have never gone down a ladder as quickly in my life and sprinted to our storm cellar. Later, my Dad took me around to see some of the damage that twister did in our area including on our farm. Fortunately, no people were hurt. To this day, when I think of it, I feel a wave of relief that I was unharmed.

[@davidllewis4075]

I'm just old enough to remember when someone having actually filmed a tornado for first time was a bigger story than the storm itself.

[@grapeshot]

Yeah my grandfather he lived through the Gainesville Georgia tornado 1936 he would later go on to fight in World War II in Italy and he told my mother he never seen destruction like he saw during World War II like he saw when those two tornadoes merged to become one and flattened Gainesville.

[@Mrbfgray]

Clearly caused by future SUVs and cow farts, totally predictable. Reparations up front.

[@cdjhyoung]

In my 70 years I have been in four tornado events. The first when I was 10 destroyed part of the house we were hiding in and took half of the farm buildings behind it. The last, 20 years ago, were a pair of funnel clouds headed in the direction of our house. One took the trees out of our front yard but missed the house. 3/4 of a mile east of us the funnel clouds converged on top of a neighbors farm yard destroying his barn. the combined storm then turned north and destroyed the next farm stead. Luckily it faded away before it hit the trailer park that was three miles north and in its path. I'd be happy never to have that experience again. We were lucky that no one was hurt in the neighborhood and everyone was able to rebuild.

[@jacqueeelle6287]

Sounds like a lot of animals were likely hurt or killed. 😢

[@valeriehowden471]

I survived the 1968 tornado in LaRiviere, MB, Canada. I was 2 but I had a fear of thunderstorms for years. We, mom, sibling and family friend were in a renovated boxcar that was lifted and moved 20 feet. Only damage inside was the spray from paint cans popping open when the pressure built up.

[@Mrbfgray]

Too much atmospheric Methane, y'all farted TOO much back then. Ya windy Mofos totally trashed the weather.

[@dennisboulais7905]

I was a USAF weather observer in the 19679-73 period. I was stationed at USAF Global Weather Central division at Offutt AFB in Nebraska. The Severe Weather Forecast Unit was part of the GWC. There was a big map of the US on the wall and it had a plexiglass sheet over it. There were holes drilled in the sheet at location of every reporting point. Colored red plastic pins were inserted in the hole of the reporting point if a tornado was spotted. In the summer you could watch as the tornado's traveled northeast across the US. Remember there wasn't any internet or way to see what was happening in real time.

[@bryanwilson8652]

As a meteorologist, this is a superbly well done piece of media. We often use this mysterious day an “analog” for current events. Well done! This day needs dramatically more attention put onto it. Also, I would add that the outbreak in 2011 you referenced here was actually the second “very deadly” outbreak of that year - the so called super-outbreak actually happened about a month prior, on April 27th 2011 across AL and MS. A truly staggering 300 people died that day in the SE. The Joplin tornado day had 1 EF5… April 27th had an insane 4. Really just a demented day. Honestly, a demented year. I’m not even particularly religious but I pray we don’t see anything like that again in my career or lifetime.

[@2daysoffproductions887]

I work for a fire department in north Alabama. The tornado hit our town. It was the longest day I’ve ever worked. We had a tornado hit our town 4 years in a row. Day before yesterday we had 2 more hit close to same area. But in “11 I thought I was going to die that day. We knew 3 days in advance we would be hit. There was little doubt.

[@user-oh2hs6jh5x]

The "Hot Blast" had some creative writing that is not often seen today.

[@terrancecoard388]

I was stationed at Shepard AFB and survived the 1979 tornado that swept across Wichita Falls Tx. The air for the next two days was thick, still and dusty...it almost felt like there was a veil across your face that you had to move aside to see. This was quite unlike the aftermath of Hurricane Flora on the island of Trinidad in the 1963. The sky was blue, cloudless, the sun brilliant and the birds were melodiously noisy....it felt like a new beginning.

[@markalexander832]

I was walking across the Tech campus in Lubbock earlier that day and still vividly remember the clouds that came across headed east. It was the strangest cloud formation I have ever seen, like being beneath a vast tent held up across the center by a hidden rope. I remember thinking that someone was surely going to catch it that day. Sure enough, it was Wichita Falls, 200 miles east. I was through Wichita Falls some months later and saw hundreds of acres of little more than foundation slabs.

[@jeffthackston9572]

I was visiting my Uncle and Aunt in Wilmington, Ohio in 1974 not far from Xenia. I was very young, but I still remember the fear and devastation. I, also, was in Joplin, after the 2011 tornado. We had a group of people from our church help with the clean up. My sister lives there now and visited the memorial park now erected from the ruins of it’s tumultuous path. So powerful that the hospital was literally moved by the storm … not destroyed completely, but moved.

[@Daniel-Weaver]

We were there also. Two things I saw that were just incomprehensible . The chain link fence around the softball field was blown flat on the ground. It did not have the privacy plastics, just chain link. You would think the air would go through. The other was the trees. We were cleaning up just east of the HS. The elms were Just stumps, 15 to 20 feet tall and starting to sprout. The west side of the trees were full of debris. I walked around to the east side and the bark was gone on that side. I was trying to figure out what happened when I asked a guy about it. He had one word, vacuum.

[@beckybanta126]

I have been in 4 tornados in 4 different states & by the grace of God, my family & I were always in shelter. I shiver remembering each one. I was in nursing school in Cincinnati when the tornado hit Xenia. I knew it was bad, but then the reports that the city was gone.......🤯😪. A few of us began praying for all there right away. We humans can sometimes believe that we are all knowledgeable & powerful; not by a long shot. 🤔

[@gregb6469]

The hospital was so badly damaged that it had to be torn down. The high school suffered a similar fate.

[@chrissherer2047]

I visited Wilmington in the summer break when Star Trek was a Saturday morning cartoon. Planet of the Apes was a cartoon at the same time. The adults kept talking about "tornado alley."I was just happy to ride in the back of a VW beetle that the cousins had.

[@mariebelladonna437]

My aunt's house was hit by a tornado in 1996, and the same thing happened to it. It was literally moved right off its foundation, turned by several degrees. They didn't have to tear it down. But they had to do a ton of rebuilding. And my husband almost got caught in the EF-4 tornado that hit Henryville, Indiana, in 2012. He was a pizza delivery driver at the time, and had to shelter in a customer's house, until the storm passed. We have some terrifying pictures of that huge tornado, that he took from their porch. It was only by the Grace of God, that the storm turned the other way. And no, I don't know why people order pizza or go through the drive-through in terrible weather. But they do it. All the damn time.

[@RetiredSailor60]

I've only seen funnel clouds from a distance. Had just entered Southern Colorado in August 2022, when I saw 2 funnel clouds simultaneously. I'm amazed at the poetic stanzas of those news articles written by the reporters/columnists back in the 19th century.

[@teastrainer3604]

They did use some impressive phrases.

[@xyzct]

You can still hear Reed Timmer screaming from 1884.

[@EarlyMusicDiva]

And Pecos Hank's haunting music.

[@priscillaross-fox9407]

LOL

[@godoftheinterwebz]

"We have to depart quickly! We have to depart quickly! We have to depart quickly! "

[@jeffisaliar]

In old English. YE OLD DEBRIS BLOWETH FROM THY VESSEL!!!

[@user-oh2hs6jh5x]

I remember when THG had less than 2000 subscribers, and now here we are at over 1.3 MILLION. WTG THG. Looking forward to all the Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays yet to come.

[@trishayamada807]

I think the first video I watched was the pith helmet or the Peshtigo fire in Wisconsin. Whichever was out first. Do you remember what got you interested?

[@Lake_Lover]

This is a wonderful channel. If you love history this is the place to be in my opinion.

[@janblackman6204]

I lived through the 2011 tornado outbreak in Alabama. My county was hit by 5 that day. Very scary day

[@realwealthproperties5671]

I always think of that Alabama football player that was with his girlfriend when it hit their apartment building. Such a sad story. That came through Mississippi and you can still see the path heading toward Tuscaloosa. Trees down everywhere along 82 and the Trace.

[@janblackman6204]

@@realwealthproperties5671 yes it was sad. Having lost my oldest daughter I can understand their grief. I had thought that they were in the bathroom but it’s been awhile. Yes Mississippi was hard hit but not much was reported on it

[@canuck_gamer3359]

Has anyone else noticed how well people used to write as opposed to nowadays? When THG was reading the accounts of the storm, beginning around 7:35, just listen to how marvelously the writer describes the scene before him. It seems to me that people then never took for granted that most people will have seen what they are describing, so they use precise, descriptive language and I find it really interesting. It's remarkable how exact the English language can be and that kind of writing is becoming more and more of a rarity.

[@patriciajrs46]

Sadly, you are right.

[@lesterjargus5311]

Photographs are so quick and ubiquitous today, the necessity of long, loquacious written descriptions has been superseded by technology. Another art form killed by our silicon overlords.

[@canuck_gamer3359]

At least I'm not alone in my thinking! @@lesterjargus5311

[@mred8002]

I have been a lifelong voracious reader, and would often read a book by a nineteenth or eighteenth century author as a treat from the pablum of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Conan Doyle, poets. Far easier for imagination to soar with their vivid foundations.

[@opalglass8101]

I was thinking the same - it's so poetic! Yet so sad

[@dennisud]

I lived through the 1974 outbreak in Louisville, Kentucky as a teen. Horrible and truly scary!

[@daled.4495]

Hello, neighbor. I, too, lived in Louisville and was sixteen when the 1974 outbreak occurred. I will never forget how unusually balmy the weather was for early April. An event forever burned into my mind.

[@jamessimms415]

Have you checked out the four part (roughly 8-9 hours) series, WHAS-AM loaded up on the 1974 Super Outbreak in Louisville & Kentucky? Well worth the time spent listening to. WHAS did an amazing job considering the communication & radar limitations of the day.

[@Lake_Lover]

I was a 12 year old kid in east central Illinois. We got hit pretty good too. IIRC, that one town in Ohio (Xenia) - maybe was hit REALLY hard. IT went right through the downtown area and destroyed it. My family and I drove through it a year later in 1975 on our way to our new home in Connecticut and it was still pretty torn up.

[@madtrucker0983]

Living in Alabama I swear I have PTSD from these things. It's year round down here. Even in December, but come April it's madning. I'll be fifty this year and the kids make fun of me about it, but they are too young too understand. They haven't had a big one happen nearby since they were old enough to remember.

[@scottcrew5705]

I’m curious, what keeps you there?

[@robertterrell3065]

I understand that!

[@Parents_of_Twins]

Ignorance is bliss for your kids. May they never have to be relieved of their ignorance. I've only seen a tornado and that was more than enough. They scare me too.

[@madtrucker0983]

@@scottcrew5705 For years it was my wife's parents. She didn't want to move away from them. Now that they have passed we just want my youngest to finish highschool where she's at.

[@madtrucker0983]

@@Parents_of_Twins True, it is.

[@mred8002]

What I remember most was the roar. Some compare it to a train, but I recall it being across the whole audio spectrum, fro very low, to so high it hurt. You really could ‘feel it in your bones’, like continuous bass at a rock concert.

[@poetcomic1]

It's not just 'sound' it invades your whole body and you feel it in your bones.

[@mred8002]

@@poetcomic1 Must be how ‘sonic weapons’ hurt people.

[@CameraBryan]

Coming up on the 50th anniversary of the April 1-3, 1974 storms that produced a super outbreak WJMW radio in Athens, Alabama was doing a live report on April 3 from a trailer park hit by a massive tornado. While they were on the air a second one struck. One was F4 and one was F5. This may still be on KZbin.

[@TheHistoryGuyChannel]

Tornado! The 1974 Super-Outbreak kzbin.info/www/bejne/jYvMh5d9q82tjNE

[@sharonbass6110]

I’ve watched that film many times. It is an excellent documentary. I was 8 and living in Chattanooga, TN. We weren’t hit, but many places around us were. I spent the time I wasn’t in school with my face stuffed in the couch cushions.

[@luannnelson547]

I have a memoir written by my fourth great-aunt Matilda Archer, who lived near Canton, Ga.; she describes the chimney of her house falling on her husband during a powerful tornado at roughly this period. I wonder if it was the same storm system. I think the school building also collapsed.

[@shutupshelley1793]

Who has a memoir written by their fourth great-aunt?? Priceless! 😂

[@dukert27]

Was this a one copy memoir or was it published? That would be amazing to read about.

[@patriciajrs46]

Geez!! Did he live through it? Just wondering. She was brave to be able to talk about it and write it down.

[@patriciajrs46]

​@@shutupshelley1793Exactly!! Please treasure it.

[@luannnelson547]

@@dukert27A cousin who transcribed it had it printed, but I don’t know if they were sold outside the family.

[@edwardschneider2716]

I always appreciate your reminders of History. You have become a modern day Paul Harvey in my home in your own way. I grew up north of where you reside currently in a town called Mt. Sterling, Illinois. As a child sometime between 1966 and 1970 I remember a tornado that hit the fairgrounds directly across the street from my parents new home just moving from the farm. A carnival parked their semis and horse racing buildings along with large maple and hickory trees lining the edge. The following morning after the storm the fairgrounds was erased. Yet our home and yard was untouched 40 feet away. My wife and I survived many tornados in 1981, Plains Ks as college students. I believe we heard the tornado sirens for 5 straight nights in April of 81. I hope to never experience them again

[@navret1707]

I arrived in Louisville in 1974 just a couple of days after a tornado went through parts of town. The devastation was amazing. Trees you and 3 other men couldn’t reach around were ripped out of the ground.

[@VespasianJudea]

I seen a weather video the other day where the fella was saying this spring could be a big one for tornadoes because of the El Niño and el niña systems behaving badly 👐

[@todds2248]

Writers were so eloquent back then, and aptly able to describe such horrors. I'll never forget seeing Xenia, OH after the outbreak. A freight train was scattered across the tracks and streets like toy knocked over by a child. I can still see the JC Penney store missing the entire front of the building, yet racks of clothing were still inside. One entire neighborhood was cleared of everything except slab foundations and pipes standing up, then there would be a house that looked untouched. So fascinating and terrifying at the same time.

[@williamdick8736]

I was just looking this up last Friday!!!!! Thank you! There's nothing I could easily find!

[@wendywhite4537]

Wow. Thank you, I had never heard of this. Great video. Keep them coming.

[@kennethfisher7013]

The damage from a large tornado like an F4 is truly unimaginable, you need to see it for yourself to understand.

[@jamessimms415]

Seen it first hand 27 April 2011

[@semigoth299]

Growing up and living through tornadoes one never gets use to them 😢 they’re all scary as fudge.

[@patriciajrs46]

How is fudge scary?

[@glenmartin2437]

I had never heard of this tornado outbreak. Thank you for covering this weather event. I worked as a storm spotter for Lincoln/Lancaster County, Nebraska for a number of years. After watching the training videos, I considered the typhoons and hurricanes I experienced rather tame compared to tornadoes.

[@ashamon101]

I have been trying to research this event for months! Thank you so much for making a video on it!

[@sillyone52062]

My small town in New Jersey was hit by what was likely a .5 EF tornado one summer night. It ripped the roof off a disused school, picked up a paperboy and tossed him a few yards, breaking his arm, then disapated.

[@cathiwalker3852]

I saw Indiana and Kentucky in '74. In the 60's 2 tornadoes hit Branch County Michigan, both took out paths 5 miles wide.

[@nattiedraws]

This is the first event you have covered that actually took place in my town. This was wild to hear the stories of.

[@Yestradamus-]

1965, Levenworth, KS … 50 in tornado alley that night. A brick gas station was “removed”. Next door was a pizza parlor with a large glass window. Not a scratch. Most homes in Oklahoma now have a “fraidy hole” buried in the yard. Modern storm cellars are simply large flow precast concrete drainage pipe joints with steps into it and a vent pipe. The doors open inwards as to not be blocked with debris.

[@djay6651]

Being from a rural area, we learned at a young age that abrupt temperature changes means the weather is about to become unpleasant. I went through Andover KS in 1991 after it was basically scoured from the earth. About the only thing not destroyed was the building of a filling station and a stoplight at an intersection on the highway. My wife and i vistited her grandmother in Wichita in the early 00s after a tornado and went by the remains of a trailer park that had a small lake that had a trailer sticking up out of the water like a pillar.

[@Otisthelesser]

You know people say “tornados sound like a train”. Trains make lots of noises. Since March 1984 I have known. If you are the first car at the tracks when the engine comes by, there is a low pitched circular sound that you can feel as well as hear. Additionally the click clack of the wheels hitting the seams in the rails. It doesn’t sound something like a train, it sounds exactly like one. 7:14 pm. March of 1984. Tore the town of Red Springs NC apart.

[@mobiledetailingchannel2067]

I remember well i was in Scotland County. I was 9 years old

[@Pygar2]

One of my earliest memories was watching ca. 1964 TV coverage of tornadoes that'd struck Ohio. A newsman held up a plank... with a straw of grass driven through it.

[@maynardcarmer3148]

When Hurricane Hazel passed through our area, a tornado hit our farm, destroying a machinery shed located between the house and barns, but never touching either of them.

[@bushwackcreek]

Had a tornado pass over my house many years ago. We were situated in fairly deep valley in the Texas Hill Country. 200 feet between ridge-tops and bottom and pretty narrow. That probably what saved us from worse destruction because the uplands disrupted the funnel. Still, I heard the freight train roar and went to the front door. I pushed my weight against it but it was surrealistic to see rain drops floating in past the door edges. I say floating because was no perceptible blast of wind to propel them. The phenomenon may have been caused by the barometric pressure changes, but I don't know. Stupidly, I stayed there at the door as the cyclone passed over. The next day, there were several massive trees twisted and broken near the house along with some of the tin ridge cap of our roof twisted and mangled. Our goats, none the worse for the experience were enjoying the leaves from the fallen trees and branches.

[@suzzannegabel1636]

My husband is from Albion, PA. He was in the Marines at Cherry Point in 1985 when a tornado scored a direct hit on his hometown. He saw it on the nightly news. There was no getting through to his family for days; all the telephone lines were down. No cell phones back then. Twelve people were killed. Fortunately, none of his large family were injured. My family lived a couple towns over at the time. Having a tornado strike so close to home scared my mother. Up until then, she'd liked sitting her rocking chair, watching storms roll through. Never again.

[@robertterrell3065]

I was in 11th grade when the 1970 Lubbock, TX tornado hit. It ran right through the center of town, barely grazing the University, thank goodness. But it did destroy square miles of residential areas and then on to the airport, and wrecked a private airfield. It didn't hit our house, but my dad and I went to the airfield the next morning and saw airplanes turned into modern sculptures. His plane was miraculously undamaged. Then in the afternoon my friend and I drove around damaged areas. My grandparents home just had the water heater left standing. The F5 damage (no EF scale yet) was just unreal. Amazing that only 26 people lost their lives.

[@robertweldon7909]

Tornados. This weather event is world wide, can happen anywhere. The Great Plains, Southeastern, and Great Lakes portions of the USA are particularly vulnerable to these storms, due to the topography, climate change has no effect. Most people have witnessed tornados and many have lived through one, or more. I can say personally, there is very little to compare to the feeling of terror, hearing the rumbling , freight train, sound at 2 in the morning, with the storm sirens blaring. I'm a weather buff, This is the first time I have ever heard this history, and I live about 20 miles south of Jasper, GA. @madtrucker is right about the southeast, due to the nearness of the Gulf of Mexico We get tornados in January. Once again, great job. ;-)

[@russwoodward8251]

Amazing. Thank you History Guy and team!

[@garysprandel1817]

Was 12 in 74 and 49 in 11 so I've lived through two super outbreaks and even today the mere mention Xenia is all you have to say to bring back memories of that day even Illinois. Definitely as descthat was most certainly a super outbreak though the lack of sufficient records how it compares to 74 and 11 will have to remain a mystery.

[@user-jj3ep2md7m]

Great presentation as always from THG. I got rather obsessed with this outbreak some years ago, and started researching it using all the old newspaper stories and published statistics. I marked locations and times of tornado reports on a US county map of the southeast, and eventually was able to correlate times and locations to at least get a sense of some of the larger, more significant storm tracks. The greatest concentration of tornadoes was indeed in Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas, and two separate WSW-ENE oriented tracks about 60 miles apart in central and north Georgia were said to have 3 mile widths, "with trees spiraling toward the center throughout". If true, these would be the largest tornadoes in history, since the current record is the El Reno, OK storm at 2.6 miles wide. Also, there were reports that a rail station in Alabama was hit right around 5pm, just as commuters were about to board. Dozens were reportedly killed (tornado at rush hour!). Another interesting report was that there were 3 main squall lines that day (very similar to the 1974 Super Outbreak), with Macon, Ga being hit "at 11am, just after 2pm, and again at 5pm". Finally, I saw reports of tornadoes from as far northwest as Missouri and Illinois that day, so this outbreak may have been much larger in coverage than is currently known. I don't think these northern storms were mentioned by Grazulis, though. It should be noted that massive destruction and high death tolls occurred even though the population of the eastern US was only one fifth what it is today. This fact alone seems to hint at the extreme scale of the outbreak - just imagine if this were to happen today.

[@garylawson5381]

As usual, another great video. Thank you History Guy!

[@kevinallen1699]

Well presented, Sir.

[@eugeneblue299]

Was not far away from the Coldwater, MI Easter Sunday tornado. Huddled in the middle of the floor with my older brother, and my mother screaming my head off.

[@v.e.7236]

We had a tornado pass very close to our house in Grand Rapids, MI, back in the 60s. So close, in fact, that it snapped an oak tree that stood just 15 ft from the house off just above ground that had a four foot trunk - like a match stick - and not a shingle on the roof was lost. Never found out where that tree went. The sound the tornado created was the real assault on the senses, as it sounded as if a freight train was moving right through the house. Several houses on the block were pretty messsed up, but we were mostly saved by the geology, as we were in a slight depression and the tornado basically skipped over us. The neighborhood next to ours was devastated and looked like some disaster movie scene.

[@froginthewaves8450]

Your videos are so informative! THANK YOU FOR PRESERVING HISTORY AND PUTTING IT IN THIS FORMAT!

[@neilfoster5618]

Excellent piece! Thank you

[@driftlesstroutdude7100]

Would love to see an episode about the Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940.

[@dirtfarmer7070]

Believe he did that one....

[@driftlesstroutdude7100]

I searched the channel, there's one about a different storm in the spring of '41 but that's all I saw?@@dirtfarmer7070

[@frankgulla2335]

Thank you, THG. You are the man who remembers what others have forgotten.

[@citylimits8927]

March 20, 1976: My parents went to play a game of bridge at some friends’ house in West Bloomfield MI north of Detroit. They had to play the game in the dark because the infamous West Bloomfield tornado had just struck nearby. It was a small, short-lived, but violent tornado (the last F4 tornado to hit the metro Detroit area as of this writing) and it did some major destruction along its path. One person was killed, if I remember correctly.

[@dukert27]

I really enjoy when you cover past storms, great video I didn’t know anything about this outbreak before I watched.

[@rickkearn7100]

Nicely done old chap. Sobering descriptions by the newspapers of the day. You're right, probably over a thousand souls were lost. This episode was in my daily YT feed, I was so impressed I subscribed. Cheers.

[@JustFluffyQuiltingYarnCrafts]

😲Thank you for sharing this historical event. ❤

[@BasicDrumming]

I appreciate you and thank you for making content.

[@AnonZero0]

*Good show--thank you!*

[@Zeyev]

I was brought up in Montgomery and I do not recall ever hearing about this outbreak. One minor issue that you may find interesting in case you haven't heard it before is the origin of the call sign WSFA, the Montgomery TV station. It stands for "With South's Finest Airport." In the early 1950s, Dannelly Field was apparently a leader. Montgomery was a leader in aviation and public transit decades ago. It's no longer known for any of that. Alas.

[@mariebelladonna437]

This video was awesome. Obviously what happened was terrible. But your detailed description really brought it to life, really made it seem relevant and almost personal to me. You really made it , even to somebody who wasn't there. And what you said at the end, about it being up to us to remember now, was so incredibly powerful, to me. But at the same time, even though those people long gone, your retelling of the story, and the passion with which you did so, brought them back, if only for 17 minutes. They lived again, just for a little while, through you. You did a great service to them, History Guy. Also, I learned a few new words from you today. You are so smart, lol, and I'm totally here for it. And again, your precise enunciation, your tone and inflection, and the cadence of your speech, along with your careful research and detailed description of your subject, make your videos an absolute pleasure to watch. As I've said before, you are pure history ASMR! LOVE this channel!!

[@alanjameson8664]

Almost 80 years old here, during the first half of my life I lived pretty close to the San Andreas earthquake fault system. Since 40 I have lived in a part of California that is about as earthquake-free as one can find out here. Some relatively simple precautions can dramatically decrease the risk of earthquake damage, but there are still people who ignore them. I still shake my head when I think of all the people who relocated from the Los Angeles area after a damaging earthquake some time ago to coastal Oregon and Washington because they thought there were no earthquakes up there---out of the frying pan and into the fire. Not long ago neighbors of ours moved to a place in coastal Oregon that is within the tsunami inundation zone--- and certain to be isolated by collapsed roads when the Cascadia fault zone busts loose. After the Long Beach earthquake in 1920-someting, California required far safer school buildings, not one of which has subsequently failed. The last I heard, Oregon and Washington still had a lot of non-earthquake resistant public schools.

[@alanjameson8664]

The internet gods used strike-out type for a couple of lines; I didn't.

[@mikeable1376]

Thanks again MR. H.G. once again great story did not know about this.

[@colgategilbert8067]

Thanks. We need to remember these terrible tragedies.

[@bubbawubba2307]

Over the last 10 years, I've had 5 tornadoes come close to the house, including the infamous mayfield tornado that killed so many a couple of years ago. It was only 3/4 mile from me at borderline F4/F5 strength. It tore soil out of the ground 18 inches in some spots. Swept houses and buildings from their foundations as if nothing existed there. Went through trees and strewn them about as a kid with matchsticks. The trees that wasnt torn asunder there was no bark left on em nor any limbs. Looked like broken toothpicks sticking up here and there. Luckily, i had just lost some of my roof. Others lost everything, including their lives

[@HollyMoore-wo2mh]

Wichita Falls, TX was another outbreak of tornadoes. There was on that hit Downtown Ft. Worth. There is a bldg that was ...twisted.

[@kalrandom7387]

I live in northeast Alabama the 2011 tornados a fe5 was a mile away from my house, it was a half a mile wide and pulled grass out of the ground, the houses had no chance of survival. Growing up with tornadoes hitting twice a year I have never been scared until that beast of nature.

[@margueriteburnette3249]

I’m Huntsville here. That was such a scary day. It was like being under siege from nature. I get anxious every time they call for severe weather.

[@MJScrivens89]

Not entirely relevant, but I’ve always found it fascinating that the earliest record of a tornado was here in the UK, in what’s now London, back in 1091.

[@russcrawford3310]

Nitpick ... the Enhanced Fujita Scale is a measure of *_damage_* ... not strength ... and is strictly an after-the-fact measure ... strength is usually confined to wind speed, and intensity is barometric pressure ... the National Weather Service will tell us when the weather is conducive to tornado formation ... but we'll be lucky to get a five minute warning ... it's still up to us to *pay attention* ...

[@raydunakin]

Just imagine what the devastation will be like when - inevitably - a major tornado strikes in the heart of a large city.

[@samhianblackmoon]

We’re going to keep an eye out for the next one

[@Zebred2001]

Climatologists and poor science "journalists" these days routinely use the word "unprecedented" when the historical record clearly states otherwise!

[@ConfusedBurger-fo6vq]

Survived a tornado in Louisiana. Was terrifying because it involved my toddler girl and my wife. While passing 1/4 of a mile away, it ripped up a half- mile of railroad track while we huddle in our bathroom. I feel deeply for the lost souls, having experienced their terror knowing there was nothing more they could do to protect the people they loved from a wild nature.

[@BenjySparky]

THG, you rock! Peace

[@HillbillyIslandLife]

I'm a huge weather geek. Especially, Tornados! You did a great job on this one! KUDOS

[@sydney.g.sloangammagee8181]

I appreciate the history of how & the need for, the weather tracking system to have come about - I think today we take so much for granted, to imagine living in times when no one had a clue what to expect & when or where, allowing for some type of safeguard awareness & preparations. But something in how you presented time frames & the growing need for gathering this information; forces me to ponder the implications of what you didn't say . . . Suggesting that IF we were to go back farther in time, severity & frequency of storms were considerably less - I know you were directly relating to the fact that these things were just not documented, rumors passed by word of mouth, per we, but . . . REALLY . . . maybe these things didn't occur, yearly & seasonally with such intensity as we are all to well aware of today, maybe 400 years ago, 600 years ago, 800 years ago, they were indeed rare occurrences - only after they became something of notice, did people figure out that we better start paying more attention to them & to learn everything we can about them. I don't know about you, but this makes me believe in the words of Jesus even more . . . maybe 2,000 + years ago, here in the New World, huge thunderstorms & severe tornados didn't even occur . . . how do we know??? But as Jesus described, as labor pains, these things will increase . . . as we get nearer & nearer to the Day of the Lord.

[@rogergoodman8665]

When I was a liitle boy, I remember my grandmother saying tornados were birthed from the lips of a very angry and unforgiving invisible specter. It wasn't until I was a teenager and saw the aftermath of a tornado with my own eyes that I understood what she meant. Truely horrific .

[@constipatedinsincity4424]

Back in the Saddle Again Naturally!

[@Kw1161]

Thanks for another captivating video! This story reminds me of the 1920’s Tri-state tornado. The technology had not changed from 1880’s as far as weather forecasting. Hopefully, the people of 2120’s will look on our weather forecasting as we look back to the 1920’s. Have a great day!

[@1chumley1]

I like the little custom intro. Nice detail 👍

[@satterlybutte]

It is, indeed, up to us. Thank you.

[@EGSBiographies-om1wb]

Another vid well worth my time to watch.

[@mikeseier4449]

After watching this video it’s made me realize that having these giant destructive tornadoes really blows!😳

[@Wil_Liam1]

Ever since I was a small child I've wanted to see a tornado up close,hear it,see what it does but have never experienced one other than driving past a local area a few minutes after a small one topped out some trees along highway 29 nearby,and blew over an ancient forgotten barn.. I've lived through many hurricanes,seen the aftermath of aeveral hurricane generated tornados and seen maybe a dozen waterspouts up close and 1 within 100' before but no hurricanadoes,nor tornicanes up close,yet...

[@mrmeowmeow710]

👍👍outstanding video

[@jeffbangkok]

Good afternoon. Just remembering my grandfather was born in 1883 and lived till he was 93. He was hard of hearing when I was born so never had many conversations. Just wish I'd known about historical items like this so I could have asked him.

[@Lance.West4]

1984 was a big outbreak year in the southeast. My mom was pregnant with me when one came right by her house. She didn't have the freight train experience. What caught her was the sound of trees snapping and hitting the house. Turnbull NC 1984

[@kellybasham3113]

Love your videos

[@djohnson9083]

Wow… Just incredible and very sad. I live in an earthquake-prone area. Anything lower than a 4.5 or so we pretty much ignore. Many years ago I was traveling through the South and we drove through Louisiana during a tornado watch/warning- I don’t remember which. But I do remember being super scared. And we were aware of what could happen. The people you told us about never had a chance.

[@SimonTekConley]

I've survived sister tornados, one passed to the south of the house, one to the north. They were small, but did do some damage. What honestly blew my mind was, we have gotten so hood at predicting them, that people get upset if the warning interrupts their lives.

[@mulletoutdooradventures6286]

I've had a few water spout encounters in NJ. I'm the early 90s we had an outbreak of water spouts one of which(s3) came down about a half mile from where we were fishing off Brigantine. Then in I believe 99 on LBI we had one come off the ocean rip a roof off a hotel then go onto the Bay and dissipate. I was working for LBT public works and we were about 3 blocks away when that happened. They are terrifying. Especially if you are in a boat and it's near

[@leeskyles9903]

excellent!!

[@edwardloomis887]

Thank you for the Army Signal Corps shout-out.

[@lestersabados1306]

I live in Massachusetts. a few years ago, A twister ripped through REVERE. It tore up about a mile. We never had a tornado that big that anybody could remember.

[@therocinante3443]

I enjoy your style History Guy! You're one well dressed historian.

[@chillindave1357]

Well done 👍

[@DB-po8rs]

They sure could write back then. It was art. A lost art.