When Weather Changed History - Super Outbreak

148 tornadoes in 24 hours across 13 States and Canada they ravage neighborhoods it looked like a bomb had gone off taking hundreds of lives it was the scariest moment of my life and injuring thousands more it is a Super Outbreak that is unlike anything ever recorded one that triggered a weather forecasting revolution the Super Outbreak is the number one event that would have an impact on the way we operate today on this episode of when weather changed history the shocking weather catastrophe known as the Super Outbreak and how this monumental disaster gave rise to groundbreaking discoveries and new technologies to better for see and track killer storms the difference in technology between today and then is just off the charts [Music] an f5 tornado perhaps the most vicious weather phenomena they can pack winds more than 300 miles per hour and can destroy lives in seconds an f4 or f5 storm literally wipes homes clean off their foundation the only thing that remains is anything that's below ground should you find yourself in the path of an f5 the National Weather Service's recommendation is clear get underground under no circumstances should they try and outrun a tornado the National Weather Service has 122 offices around the country scanning the atmosphere for severe weather 24 hours a day one two more than any other powers they're forecasting advanced Doppler radar it enables forecasters to see inside a storm and detect its potential for violence you can actually see winds within these thunderstorms and that's what it's so critical in order to be able to tell for tornadoes forming within those storms computerized communications and a cross-country network of weather radio stations allow faster warnings than ever before we get the warning out literally within seconds of when we hit the enter button on our computers the results are definitive fewer Americans lose their lives in tornadoes than in years past [Music] these advances are the legacy of April 3rd 1974 a pivotal day in American weather history beginning on that day 148 separate tornadoes including six devastating f5 s would rip across the country killing more than 300 people and injuring thousands in just 24 hours [Music] it would become known as the Super Outbreak April 3rd 1974 Louisville Kentucky David Rives is a lead forecaster in the Louisville office of the National Weather Service when Reeves reports for work that afternoon he finds his colleagues already very busy they were getting reports of west of here of what was going on out in West Kentucky the weather over the past few days has been a turbulent mix of thunderstorms and tornadoes caused by a clash of air currents there was a large low pressure system off to the west to the south was warm moist air to the north and northwest cooler drier air on this day the conditions for possible tornadoes are in place you have to have strong winds aloft and you have to have the instability and in this case we had massive proportions of both Reeves and his colleagues know that the weather system swirling above the u.s. is unstable and dangerous their technology is among the best available at the time meteorologists contract storm movements but they don't have the ability to seed tornadoes forming in 1974 the National Weather Service does have radar technology but it's not the advanced radar we know today invented during World War two the older technology is better suited for tracking solid objects like enemy aircraft it is not well equipped for tracking tornadoes you have this round scope and you have this thing going around it would put a yellow or greenish spot on bright just light a spot you would just see a print basically of the storm that was out there it kind of looked like a green blob by keeping an eye on those green blobs forecasters can track the position of the storm but the meteorologists have to track the storms movement by hand we would take a grease pencil and circle the the spot on a radar and go back 15 minutes later and we could calculate how far it moved and we come up some idea of the direction and speed of movement but it was the best way ahead although meteorologists can accurately forecast the severe weather they're limited radar does not see tornadoes inside the storms and there is no way to measure a storm severity with a potential for violent tornadoes this will cause forecasters to underestimate the worst tornado outbreak in recorded history which gets underway on the afternoon of April 3rd 1974 Brandenburg Kentucky on the Ohio River nearly 45 miles from Louisville Brandenburg is a rural town of about 1,700 Jain Willis and her family run the local newspaper the Meade County messenger my father was the publisher and my mother was the managing editor we were very much a country paper about 4:00 p.m. after visiting friends Jane returns to the office conversation at the newspaper revolves around the weather just two days earlier 23 tornadoes had developed across the central and southern United States causing wind damage right in their own County that storm and the devastation it caused is fresh on the minds of the Willis family when they look outside that afternoon the sky turned kind of a green yellow and it it felt different and then my mother said it's a storm it's a storm a massive f5 slams into the river town the Willises and their employees scramble into the basement as the tornado roars overhead we were in the stairwell every bit of dust from this hundred-year-old building was being sucked out of the woodwork the f5 tornado grinds through the heart of Brandenburg within minutes the twister is gone but the destruction is overwhelming about half of the town's buildings are destroyed 31 people are killed nearly one out of every seven residents injured at the messanger newspaper office the Willis family is unharmed they stumble out of the basement and into a different world I saw devastation the town was just destroyed this was the end of Brandenburg as I knew it Janne learns that the friends she visited moments before are dead it was absolutely overwhelming about 45 miles away from Brandenburg in Louisville Dave leaves and his fellow forecasters at the National Weather Service have no idea what's happened looking at their radar they could see the path of the storm but they could not detect the tornado only when they hear news of it on the radio do they understand the reality of the green blobs on their radar we've learned real quick that every one of those things was producing severe weather now just minutes after learning about the devastation in Brandenburg reeve sees another disaster looming on his radar the spot that caused the tornado Brandenburg was in line it was headed right toward us the storm is now heading for Kentucky's largest city Louisville [Music] April 3rd 1974 Brandenburg Kentucky is in ruins after an f5 tornado strike nearly 45 miles away in Louisville National Weather Service meteorologist David Rives couldn't see the tornado on his radar but he knows from radio reports that storms are headed his way our little radar was showing that this spot had passed over Brandenburg and was headed directly toward Louisville and we put out a warning for Louisville Steve Reeves of the National Weather Service [Music] we do have a pretty a wild and rugged weather picture on our hands here that afternoon in Louisville traffic reporter dick Gilbert is in the sky covering the daily traffic for whas radio so be prepared as you're driving Gilbert a former Air Force pilot also flies the helicopter my dad was the only person who could see what was really going on at that point every day he checks on his 14 year old daughter Candace Gilbert a widower uses his chopper to make sure she's safe at home after school he would fly over the house and the routine was that I would have to run out in the front yard and wave to him and let him know that I was okay but this day is far from routine the sky has turned pitch-black when Candace sees her dad flying overhead he was only about maybe a hundred feet off the ground and with the clear bubble of the helicopter I could see him very clearly and I could see him say get in the basement and he's making violent circular motions with his hands Candace heads underground as her father flies back toward the city [Music] 4:37 p.m. it is swirling around Gilbert spots a funnel forming above Louisville it looks like a smoke underneath it there is no real tight definitive tornado has such it's still turning at a large against there's one now start it yes dipping down from the bottom of the cloud because of Gilbert's broadcast thousands of listeners take shelter forecasters on the ground in Louisville are stymied by they're incomplete radar picture but from his vantage point in the sky Gilbert can report a blow-by-blow of the tornado's path whas TV and radio use Gilbert's aerial warning to alert people to take shelter he was telling you where it is at this moment and where it looks like it's headed we put the bulletin out that a tornado hadn't touched ground a funnel cloud has been sighted moving northeast from McNeely Lake please be on guard in those areas and if necessary take a place of safety the Louisville tornado touches down at standard Ford Airport home to an office of the National Weather Service meteorologist john burke is standing in front of the window and goes live on whas radio as the tornado approaches good gracious sakes alive how high is the wind speeds this tires fifty right there by golly the whole thing is wrong here burke quickly backs away from the window dick Gilbert continues to track the tornado from the air as it pounds Louisville he had a line that nearly everyone who remembers that day will repeat to me now five right over the fairgrounds the horse bars are no more it totally wiped out the horse parts the tornado then heads straight for Northeast Louisville teenagers Valerie and Jeff Underhill have just arrived home from school we had a golden retriever who was very active and and always anxious to get outside I remember that day in hindsight that he came out on the back stoop sniffed around and wanted to go right back inside the winds begin to pick up as Jeff heads inside with his dog the teenager doesn't think much about the dogs strange behavior his parents heard work in downtown Louisville when they find out a tornado has headed straight for their neighborhood they immediately call home to warn their children I said you all should get to the basement Underhill and his wife race home to be with their children we turned on the radio as we were driving home and actually listened to mr. Gilbert broadcast how he was following the tornado and a helicopter I heard my sister he yelled from out of the kitchen and ran out to see what it was she said quickly look out the kitchen window we couldn't see a funnel we just saw the black mass moving in our direction and things flying across the backyard Valerie and Jeff grabbed the family dog and run to their basement we went over underneath the pinball machine and literally within a moment after crouching down in that area got very loud above us we thought the house was gonna come crashing down on us I can remember my sister and I hugging each other holding onto the dog at the same time as tightly as we could and literally the fear that this is the end when George and aunt Underhill arrived home they find their streets blocked off by debris their neighborhood destroyed we're in total panic because they had told us that there's no way anybody could have lived on a street corner near their home the Underhill's find valerie and jeff shaken but safe [Music] their house is decimated the only thing left standing intact was one bathroom in the center of the first floor it's very emotional at times when I even think about it to realize how close we had come to losing her children [Music] nine hundred buildings in Louisville are damaged beyond repair from the tornado that was on the ground for more than 20 minutes more than 200 residents are injured by the f4 tornado incredibly only two people died many credit digg Gilberts live reports for saving so many lives be very very careful to Gilbert sky watch 84 the rest of Kentucky will not get the benefit of Gilbert's aerial broadcast we had no idea that was his widespread as it was they just kept going kept going just minutes after the Louisville strike yet another destructive tornado will form over the town of Xenia Ohio the town will have little warning April 3rd 1974 two powerful tornadoes have torn through Louisville and Brandenburg Kentucky and it's not over yet more tornadoes break out across the South the Midwest and the Ohio River Valley perhaps the strongest tornado of all is the one that hits Xenia Lyle as it barrels into town most residents are completely unaware like many other communities in 1974 Xenia with a population of 25,000 doesn't have tornado sirens seventeen-year-old maureen clark is seven weeks from graduation at Xenia high by 4:30 p.m. classes are over but maureen is in the auditorium practicing for the school musical with 15 other students we were in the middle of one of the songs and suddenly the the back door of the auditorium opens up and a girl named Ruth comes running in and is very upset and is yelling very loudly you have to take cover Maureen and the students run outside where they see the tornado grinding toward them it was the scariest moment of my life because it was just this black ominous thing out there that was coming towards us very quickly a little more than a mile away is John Lockwood his wife and two young children they are all inside the church where Lockwood is pastor he and his wife are cleaning when Lockwood looks outside a window it got totally totally dark outside and I realized something very devastating was happening the Lockwood's race for the church basement back at Xenia high school the students hunkered down in the main hallway there was some yelling because we're gonna die or we're gonna die this is unbelievable and then hit as the terrifying winds subside the students at Xenia high emerged from their school it just looked like a bomb had been dropped in front of the high school as we turned around and looked at the building all of the windows were shattered there was no second floor it was gone if we had been on the stage at that point we would have died during this tornado there were buses on the stage the ceiling had collapsed it would have been the end of our lives after riding out the storm in his church basement pastor Lockwood emerges to find total destruction [Music] I could see clear downtown I hollered at my wife and I said Connie we have had a very devastating storm it takes nine minutes for the tornado to tear through Xenia at least half of the town is leveled the tornado has killed more than 30 and injured 1,150 it is part of the worst tornado outbreak in US history and it's not over [Music] [Music] April 3rd 1974 a massive tornado outbreak is underway in several states and if they went across Illinois and Indiana up into Michigan parts of Indiana Ohio Kentucky Tennessee Mississippi Alabama and ultimately even Georgia due to their limited technology meteorologists are confounded by the severity of the outbreak they were able to forecast the severe weather but they can't see the tornadoes on their radar so they can't issue advanced warnings in many cases their warnings come after tornadoes have already hit the ground communication networks are also limited the National Weather Service still relies on an old teletype system we could type on a teletype machine and it created a little ticker tape and we could put the tape in a little box and go the CIN and it would send to the news media very very labor-intensive if a piece of paper tape broke you had to start over again very slow way to get the warning out the sheer volume of messages put out on April 3rd overwhelms the network and jams teletype machines the result is disastrous warnings come too late some messages never get through at the National Weather Service office in Louisville meteorologist John Burke erupts in frustration and anger he took a grease pencil and slammed it down a desk he said we're not doing a damn bit of good you know we put out these warnings people still getting killed 6:00 p.m. near Huntsville Alabama in limestone County civil defense director Spencer black is aware of the disaster unfolding east of the Mississippi River and knows the stormy weather is headed his way it's in Arkansas is in Mississippi and they told us by 6 o'clock you will experience some of the most severe weather that Limestone County has ever experienced Black's office is ill-equipped for a disaster we had two radios one with the county government and also one with a Sheriff's Department that we didn't have anything we were one of the poorest prepared counties in the state limestone county has no tornado sirens 7:05 p.m. a tornado begins to tear through the Alabama countryside eighteen-year-old Donnie powers and 15 year-old Felicia golden are highschool sweethearts they are in Donnie's Mustang driving on a rural road when the tornado bears down I could see clouds forming and I started getting scared and I noticed places she went totally silent she wouldn't say anything it was raining so hard the car didn't even want to go it went to stop install [Applause] suddenly Donnie seized the tornado there's only one evasive action he knows pasta if Lisa open your door and get in the ditch and when she opened the door things started hitting us open the door and that's as far as I got the rocks started coming in hitting me in the face and the wind was just just very lots of pressure inside the car I went through the windshield and I don't remember landed I was still in the car and I was still conscious and the car flipped three times that I know of I was very scared that I would not make it out of it a short while later strangers see Felisa badly injured on the side of the road someone else finds Donny at a nearby field they are taken separately to the hospital the tornado will carve an 85 mile path through Alabama and into Tennessee a short while later a second tornado bears down and for nearly 20 miles follows almost the same path as the first the two tornadoes destroy or damage more than 1,000 buildings and 200 mobile homes they also kill 55 people and injure more than 400 limestone County had back-to-back tornadoes that hit the same community twice within an hour period supercell thunderstorms within the same line that wound up crossing almost the exact same path that night Felisa and donnie see each other in the hospital he didn't recognize me and I just had this blank look on his face and it kind of scared me two days later Donnie begins to regain his memory now I started remembering Hey Felisa was with me and that's when I asked about Felisa how was please every day for the next seven weeks Donnie visits Felisa in the hospital the experience brings them closer together it showed us that laugh can be taken away from us really quick and we decided that we wanted to get married and start our life no idea [Music] in all 10 tornadoes tear through Alabama on April 3rd causing more than 50 million dollars in damages the final death toll in Alabama 86 with nearly a thousand people injured it was the worst by far and has been since that date within the space of five hours six lethal f5 tornadoes have struck the Midwest and southeast United States thirty were ranked four or five no other outbreak has come anywhere near that their paths shatter common beliefs about the behaviors of tornadoes scientists and the public learned tornadoes can cross mountains and valleys they can also traverse rivers the tornado that hit Brandenburg crossed over the Ohio River into Indiana after the f4 roared through Louisville it dispelled another myth showing the public and scientists that tornadoes can strike metropolitan cities we now know it's really was just the fluke of the rareness of tornadoes that they can really strike anywhere they feel like it when the conditions are correct the 1974 Super Outbreak also ends a long-held belief about opening windows when a tornado approaches people thought that it was better to open windows because of a trapped higher pressure that was inside the house and then when the tornados low pressure went over houses exploded outward but as the outbreak showed all too well homes are destroyed not by a change in air pressure but by high winds [Music] instead of opening windows people should immediately seek shelter [Music] the next day April 4th 1974 Americans wake up to news of one of the worst tornado disasters in US history in just 24 hours an outbreak of 148 tornadoes in 13 states had carved a path of destruction totaling more than 2,500 miles more than 300 were killed about 5,500 people injured this was a pretty much unprecedented for for the public and for the meteorologist who had to deal with it as tornado outbreaks go this is as bad as they get the prospect of rebuilding is daunting it was a mind-boggling disaster and I thought how are we going to get back to where we were and how long is it going to take for the forecasting community and tornado scientists the aftermath of the outbreak is painful if we had a better radar we would have probably have done a better job better radar could have saved lives this outbreak will change that and trigger a revolution in forecasting the super outbreak is the number one event that would have an impact on the way we operate today April 1974 after the tornadoes super outbreak scientists forecasters and the government vowed to overhaul the way tornadoes are predicted and tracked Ted Fujita a well-known weather scientist launches a comprehensive effort to understand what happened in the outbreak The Weather Channel's severe weather expert Greg Forbes was a graduate student on Fujita's tornado research team they were busily mapping their strategy the day after the outbreak we spent April 4th trying to collect as much information as we could getting maps buying film arranging for a renting aircraft April 5th from the air the teams inspect the giant land scars created by the tornadoes they examined the destruction left by a tornado in Monticello Indiana which appears to have traveled 121 miles on the ground just seemed like the damage kept going and going and going it was amazing as the team investigates they determined that the damage was done not by one but by two tornadoes Fujita would later determined that these two tornadoes were part of a whole family of nine tornadoes causing a path of destruction nearly 260 miles long in Illinois and Indiana between April and July the researchers visit many locations including Brandenburg and Louisville Kentucky Xenia Ohio and limestone County Alabama Fujita's goal is to rank each of the 148 tornadoes in terms of wind speed and strength when he went to Brandenburg he was interested in a cemetery he could calculate the mass of a headstone if it was moved it took a certain force to do that so he could try to make an estimation of the wind speed whatever it took to move that block of granite Fujita is also seeking to prove a theory he has been developing about tornadoes he believes that instead of containing one funnel tornadoes consist of multiple vortices while proving the theory Fujita and Forbes benefit from the use of a new technology personal movie cameras citizens document the disasters as they unfold and share the images with scientists they were flooded with all these pictures of the actual storms moving there's several little vortexes funnels rotating around and they caught all this on video one movie in particular of Xenia Ohio was taken by a 16 year old Bruce Boyd he filmed the tornado as it was just beginning to carve a 32-mile path through the heart of his hometown frame-by-frame Fujita studies the film and can see it had multiple vortices it showed a very very tiny suction vortex within it revolving about the pair tornadoes we certainly saw evidence of these suction vortices in most of the tornadoes Fujita's discoveries are revolutionary his research brings about the development of new technology and communication systems these developments lead to faster ways to predict tornadoes and ultimately save lives Vegeta's research in 1974 also serves as a springboard for the F scale which links damage and wind speed as weather science evolves his scale is revised in 2007 to better reflect a tornadoes destructive power but there is no question that without his research there might not be a system at all over the next decade all grade our technology is phased out by the mid-1980s the National Weather Service implements a newer radar system nationwide called Doppler you can actually see winds within these thunderstorms and that's what it's so critical in order to be able to tell if say there's gonna be damaging winds or for tornadoes forming within these storms this is a dish that sends out a signal a very large signal into a thunderstorm and then it bounces back the thunderstorm will actually bounce back a portion of that signal that's what allows us to actually see the intensity of the rainfall and this is the key thing seeing the actual speed and motion of the storm particles within the thunderstorm today there's a new generation of radar NEXRAD is a national network of 153 high-resolution Doppler weather radars operated by the National Weather Service well the Raiders that we're seeing here today are off the scale compared to what we could see back in the 70s I can zoom into a particular store quite easily and and I can get up close and personal with a particular storm you couldn't do that back then that's a circulation within the thunderstorm that's indicative that that thunderstorm is producing damaging winds and likely producing a tornado that's the kind of thing that we look for to issue warnings that's the kind of thing that did not exist years ago the super tornado outbreak not only exposes radar deficiencies but communication failures as well in 1974 weather radio transmission is extremely limited there were only 50 to 60 transmitters across the entire nation and most of those were in marine locations in 1979 Congress approves funding for the installation of a 330 station weather radio network that allowed us to actually give warnings to people even in the middle of the night over the years the network grows to about 1,000 stations nationwide in 1979 the National Weather Service replaces teletype machines with computers today meteorologists use state-of-the-art equipment to supply forecasts the internet also revolutionizes how people access weather information anyone with a high-speed Internet connection can have more data on their home computer today than any forecaster in any office had in 1974 during the Super Outbreak these advances in technology and communications have clear results the average warning lead time for tornadoes increases to 13 minutes most tornadoes who were on the ground before we had a warning out in 1974 to go from having no warning at Ground Zero in 1974 to having minutes lead time to the very first touchdown of a tornado is phenomenal those advanced warnings save lives annual death tolls and the triple digits were more common in the 1950s and earlier in recent years it's been closer to 60 fatalities per year in 2008 the country's preparedness would be tested by another deadly outbreak [Music] in 2008 a deadly tornado outbreak hits the US and tests the technological innovations that resulted from the 1974 super outbreak February 5th it is presidential primary day in much of the country that afternoon multiple tornadoes hit Arkansas Tennessee and the Mississippi River Valley is known as a Super Tuesday outbreak there were numerous tornadoes that day 87 tornadoes break out at least 57 people are killed hundreds injured on Super Tuesday people had advanced warning about 16 minutes as a result the death toll is smaller than that of 1974 had it occurred before the advent of new technology far more people might have died a tornado outbreak of this intensity and this magnitude probably would have resulted in over three four hundred fatalities [Music] in Louisville Kentucky after the 1974 tornado destroyed their home George and Ann Underhill started a construction company to restore their neighborhood we felt that we were doing a positive thing for the community as well as starting a new venture in our life in Xenia Ohio churches and schools have been constructed to resist tornado winds state laws put in place after the 1974 Super Outbreak require that school districts have tornado drills and teach children what to do in the event of a tornado and towns across the country have installed tornado warning sirens now we have a magnificent to the early warning system for weather alerts and and that's in large part due to the experience that we had in 1974 for Maureen Clarke the Xenia tornado taught her to be watchful of the weather we look for how winds are shifting we really listen to what the forecasters are saying to us in Alabama Spencer black took the lead in making limestone County as tornado ready as possible we can assist people we got resources so you could say that this county went from nothing to being the best many who live through the outbreak feel protected by the new weather technology you can watch your TV you can look at radar system they can tell you when a tornado is coming and you got so much time now where we didn't have time back then Donny's wife Alisa however isn't taking any chances no more going out during stormy weather 9 while all the technology in the world is no guarantee of survival there is no doubt it can keep people safer the more information you have the better decisions you can make and the better you can keep your family and your loved one safe [Music] [Music]

Channel: ehatt600

Views: 481,152

Rating: 4.8041654 out of 5

Keywords: super outbreak, april 3, 1974, tornado outbreak, when weather changed history

Id: biGVS8t04yI

Length: 41min 52sec (2512 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 18 2018