Miami Valley View reflects on the 50th Anniversary of Xenia Tornado

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I'm Jeff Stevens. This is MiamiValley View. Thank you so much for
listening, and I am here withChristina Schaeffer, who is the PR coordinator
for the City of Xenia. Christina, good morning, good morning, Thanks
for having me absolutely thank you forcoming in. And we are talking about
amazingly the fiftieth anniversary of the Xeniatornado, which is coming up this Wednesday,
April third. And I know youhave a lot of stuff planned around

(00:24):
the commemoration of the event. Butfor some folks, I mean, I
lived through the Xenia Tornado, andI was and then I later in my
years after college, I moved toXenia and lived there for about ten years,
and I lived almost in the pathof the tornado, in a neighborhood
that was basically completely redone because ofthe tornado. But I don't think,

(00:48):
as I've been seeing a lot aboutthe Xenia Tornado over the last couple of
weeks with the anniversary coming up,I don't think anybody has I mean,
if you really have to think abouthow much damage and destruction and loss of
life, this was a massive tornado, it was. It was I believe
in my talking with the National WeatherService for various projects we're doing with this.

(01:10):
I believe it was the strongest ofthe super outbreak that that day,
over the course of the April third, April fourth, I believe it was
the strongest. Interesting fact that Ifound out the doctor Fijeta, who you
know, we all know of,who does the Fijita scale for the intensity
of tornadoes, he actually wanted toclassify the tornado as an F six,

(01:34):
really, but it was then laterdowngraded to an F five. But I
found that interesting that, you know, I had no idea that there would
even be even the thought of anF six, But it was a massive
and a lot of the you knowthere there's the few iconic pictures that you
see of it. Yeah, AndI was recently I found some old slides

(01:57):
that we had down in the basementof ours that he built. Wow,
and it was able to get themdigitized. And there's a few pictures of
the tornado that I have never seenbefore, and it's just it's it's terrifying
the size and scale of this thing. The Green County Archives did back for
the fortieth anniversary. They did asurvivor stories interviews, just radio interviews with

(02:22):
some of the people who lived throughit. And one of the accounts that
I found so striking was a womanwho said she was talking about her husband
who had seen it, and shesaid he thought that it was a flock
of birds. And I thought tomyself, what do you mean a flock
of birds? And then when Ilooked at one of the pictures, because
of the way to breathe, Icould see that, sure, it might

(02:45):
look like a flock of birds.So it's been really interesting to hear how
people viewed it, what people thoughtof it when they saw it, and
then just to see these new picturesthat I have personally never seen before.
I mean, it was a huge, huge tornado well, and I mean
a five. It's interesting to hearyou say downgraded to A five. A

(03:07):
five is obviously the worst, andyou know, there's even as I was
looking doing some research on this,one of the questions people ask, has
there ever been an F six butthis would qualify? And I remember I
think it was National Geographic or somebodya couple of years ago did the top
ten worst tornadoes of all time,and Xenia was it was four or five

(03:30):
something like, it's one of theworst ones ever, and thirty two people
lost their lives, over a thousandpeople injured, and that whole entire community.
That the path of it, Imean it it sometimes you see houses
that are partially you know, messedup. Everything was flattened, Yes,
absolutely flattened. It was I believeit was, like you said, thirty

(03:51):
two people killed, over one thousandinjured, and I believe it was half
of the structures, including homes,in the entirety of Xenia were demolished or
damaged in some way. And it'sjust it's striking to see these pictures where
you can't even really get a senseof where you are in town because the
debris is so I mean, it'sI mean, this thing derailed an entire

(04:15):
train. I don't know if you'veever seen the traits of that. I
have not seen that. There's notmany pictures that I've seen, but there
were train tracks that went through Xeniaat one point, yes, and it
literally it flipped over a train.And so there's just these these pictures of
I mean to think of what typeof you know, the powerful winds that

(04:39):
it would take to do that.Yeah, it's almost unfathomable. Yeah,
it says seven thousand homes were destroyed. That's crazy. And also you mentioned
the tornado outbreak. That was thething. It was. It kind of
stretched across the country, it did. Yeah, I think it said one
hundred and forty eight tornadoes forty eightand I think it was a thirteen different

(05:00):
states. It started in the morningand just continued and went and and so
I talked with one of the mediurologistsis out of the National Weather Service office
in Wilmington for a video piece thatI put together that'll be part of our
events. And I asked him,I said, you know, what was
it about that day? You knowthat made that And he said, there's

(05:23):
no you know, everybody's always hangingoh this is this was the highest you
know, measurement of this ever orthis was the highest and he said it
just it was everything was elevated.Nothing was the highest it's ever been or
some unprecedented thing. It was justeverything was elevated. Everything was just the
perfect recipe for disaster. So it'struly breathtaking. Just pulling up some of

(05:48):
the pictures. I mean, allyou have to do is, you know,
google Zingia tornado and stuff comes rightup. Do you guys have do
you have stuff on social media orwebsites that the people who are interested in
in, you know, seeing someof that stuff, where should they look?
Yeah, and then I want totalk about this Wednesday. Yeah,
we have on our website there isa section on our website that just in

(06:10):
general that has been around that hasinformation about the Xenia tornado and gets you
to pictures of the event. We'llalso have our city has a YouTube channel
where we have where you can alwaysgo and like watch our council videos or
our council meetings and things. Butthat's also where we put a lot of
the video that we that I producethat have you know, spotlights on different

(06:32):
programs or you know, departments.We will have two separate videos that will
be up. One of them thatkind of recounts the survivor stories that I
mentioned that using the audio from thosethe forty anniversary, and then another one
where I spoke with the National WeatherService and another meteorologist just about the changes.

(06:54):
Because one of you know, there'salways you think about, you know,
you want to take something that's terribleand hopefully learn something from it,
makes something good from it, right, And one of the good things that
came from the super outbreak was theadaptation of the Doppler radar system, so
we know more about tornadoes now.You know, there's they always say,

(07:17):
like, you know, the dayof this tornado, it was a beautiful,
beautiful day. You would never havethought, you know, but now
no new yor agist will tell youknow, they kind of knew something was
brewing. But you know, thealerts that we have now, the knowledge
that we have now we're able tobe more weather aware days in advance and
just kind of know, hey,there's a potential for this. And so

(07:38):
even though this was such a terribleevent, not just in Xenia, but
you know across the Midwest, therewas something good that came from it that
hopefully keeps people safe well. Andjust reading a little bit more about it,
that the tornado actually formed near Belbrook, and so you know, you
just think Xenia tornadoes such a phrase, right for the last fifty years,

(08:03):
the Xenia tornado. How fortunate forthe folks in Bellbrook. Yes that it
was really not a factor there,but that's where it formed. It picked
up speed and they said it formedas a moderate tornado and then all of
a sudden it just kicked in,you know, within a mile or two,
and you've got this massive, massivestorm. Again. The pictures are

(08:24):
breathtaking, they are. Yeah,and like you said, just a massive,
massive storm going through at the time, a pretty heavily populated area.
Yeah and yeah, it's like yousaid, the pictures are just unbelievable to
see. And it's interesting now tosee the meteorologists because there's been so many
people doing stories, but seeing thecurrent meteorologists going back and talking about now

(08:48):
here's the track, here's the pathof the tornado, because we have so
much more knowledge now than we didthen, and actually seeing news clippings from
back then. I mean they're standingin front of a little, a little
tiny TV that's not high definition,that has hardly any graphics, and you
know, it's bare bones. Yeah. I was. When I was out
at the National Weather Service talking totheir carew out there, they were showing

(09:11):
me the old weather maps for lackof better I mean, it would it
would be what I would equate tolooking at like from a submarine or something,
you know, like you know,taking the little tool that you I
don't know what that's called, right, but you know I'm like, how
do you even know in relation towhere you were? How do you even
know where to? I mean,it's it's incredible that they were able to

(09:35):
actually give forecasts and that time withtechnology that they have, because now you
know, the radars can show ohno, this is lightning, Okay,
this is hail, and it's thisis debris and yeah, it's just it's
it's wild the changes that have occurredsince then. It really is. And
of course, you know, thethe Indian Lake tornado, uh, just

(09:56):
to just a couple of weeks ago, all that stuff. I mean,
they're doing stuff in real time,very specifically, and so that that has
come out of that, and youknow, and of course you know,
Xenia turned around and went through ittwenty six years later in the year two
thousand, with another tornado in asimilar area. Yeah, it took almost

(10:16):
a very similar path that the seventyfour tornado took. It did less of
damage. It was still a significanttornado, but did less damage, but
very similar path, which is kindof an eerie detail. Yeah, it
really is. Yeah, I rememberboth of them, and I lived actually
I lived in Xenia until ninety nineand moved and then you know, we

(10:37):
hadn't been out of Xenia for ayear and then there was a tornado and
that tornado was also right by whereour house was. So yeah, really
it's really like you said, it'svery eerie. We have about about four
minutes left here, so I wantto talk about how you're commemorating you know
this you know, monumental occasion comingup this Wednesday on the anniversary. Yeah,

(10:58):
So on the anniversary, we're goingto have a ceremony that'll be out
in the streets under a cover tentjust in case there's you know, rain
or wind or anything. But it'llbe a large cover tint with seating for
about one hundred so everybody is welcomeand everybody in time is welcome to attend.
It's free, open to the public, but there is limited seating.

(11:18):
It'll start at four o'clock on EastMain Street, right across from the courthouse,
and we'll have a couple of specialspeakers from the National Weather Service Storm
Prediction Center and then also the meteorologistsin charge from the National Weather Services Wilmington
office. We have been in conversationswith the governor's office. We're hoping that

(11:39):
he can attend, but we knowwith his schedule that there, you know,
there's a chance that he might notbe able to, but we have
extended the invitation. We hope thathe can join us for that event that
day. But we'll have also theSpirit of Flight Brass Quintet band from the
from Right Pat will be joining usfor some special music. So it'll be

(12:01):
a nice event. I hope peoplefeel like it does it justice because we
do want to pay tribute to thefact that this was a huge event that
happened in our community. It reshapedthe community. But we also want to
say, you know, look,here's where we're going. You know,
we want to move forward, butstill remember what happened. Yeah, and

(12:24):
that there are good things, youknow, happening all the time in Xenia.
You have some exciting any anything excitingyou want to just kind of sprinkle
out there that we could look forwardto happening in Xena. You know,
there's a lot of good that's happeningin Xenia. It doesn't happen overnight,
but there's a real optimism. Ithink from a development standpoint that people see

(12:46):
Xenia as a community that they wantto be in, and you know,
there's the redevelopment of one of theareas that was hit downtown pretty hard.
It was known as Zena town Squarewhen it was redeveloped, and we are
working with partners right now to reshapethat and the plans that have that I've

(13:09):
seen. Anyway, I'm not reallyon the planning part of it. I
just kind of let people know what'sgoing on from when they tell me to.
But it is a really exciting andreally great project, and I think,
you know, there's ways that wewant to pay tribute to the tornado
within that space. But I mean, there's just some really exciting things that

(13:31):
are happening. And I think Xeniathat you see today, within even a
couple of years, five, especiallyfive to ten years down the road,
it's going to look completely different.And I mean, at least I'm optimistic.
I think. I think Xenia isa wonderful community. I think a
testament to them has just been theway that so many people have stayed in

(13:52):
Xenia. Of course, a lotof people did leave after the tornado in
seventy four, but a lot ofpeople stayed, and I think that says
a lot about the community that theyfeel a real tie to it, and
I think that they're going to seea huge change in the next few years.
That's exciting. Yeah. One ofmy first radio stations I ever worked
at was out on Kinsey Road,just by the high school. So I

(14:16):
have, like I said, livedthere for ten years, so very fond
memories of Xenia, and I thinkit's great what you guys are doing.
So we have just like thirty secondsleft. So once again, Christina,
what real quick? The time andthe place for this one? Sure,
there at four o'clock in front ofthe courthouse on East Main Street. It
should wrap up about four, whichis when the tornado hit, So there'll

(14:39):
be that, and then there willbe a display on the second floor of
the city building on East Main Streetfor the entire month of April that people
are welcome to come in and lookand see the different artifacts that we've put
together. There'll be some neat thingsthere that I think people will enjoy taking
a look at. Okay, verygood Christina Scheffer, PR coordinator for the
City of Xenia talking about the fiftiethanniversary of the Xenia Tornado. Thanks Christina,

(15:03):
thank you.