NFPA Journal - Spring 2024 - 80

Looking Back
FIRE INCIDENTS AND
OTHER NOTABLE EVENTS
FROM SAFETY HISTORY
SUPER
OUTBREAK
50 YEARS AFTER THE TORNADO
MEGA-EVENT OF 1974
By Scott Sutherland
I
n the first days of April, 1974,
meteorologists watched with
alarm as a massive cold front
swept east out of the Rockies and
headed toward a mass of warm,
moist air moving north off the Gulf of Mexico.
The question wasn't whether the impending collision
would generate severe weather, but rather
how many storms would form and how widespread
their impact would be.
The answer to both questions would soon be
made brutally apparent. The storm system that
formed out of the meeting of those masses produced
one of the largest, deadliest, and most violent
tornado events ever recorded, resulting in 148 twisters
over much of the eastern half of the United
States in a little over 24 hours. The event came to
be known as the " 1974 Super Outbreak, " bested only
by a similar spasm of violent weather in 2011.
Scattered storms and tornadoes were recorded
April 1 and 2, with the first confirmed tornadoes
of the super outbreak occurring during
the mid-morning hours of April 3. The twisters
rapidly grew in number and intensity; immense
tornadoes more than a mile wide churned across
the landscape of the Midwest, obliterating everything
in their paths. By the afternoon of April 3,
the atmospheric conditions in parts of Indiana,
Ohio, and Kentucky were primed to produce
especially large and destructive tornadoes. The
most vicious of them, and the deadliest twister of
the outbreak, leveled much of the city of Xenia,
Ohio, destroying or badly damaging more than
1,400 structures and killing 32 people. (As part
of a subsequent study of the outbreak, Dr. Ted
Fujita-the noted researcher who devised the
F1-F5 scale to describe a tornado's intensity and
destructive capability-initially assigned an F6
rating to the Xenia twister based on the extreme
nature of the resulting damage. Fujita later downgraded
the Xenia twister to an F5, describing an
80 | NFPA JOURNAL * SPRING 2024
A home damaged by
the F5 tornado that
leveled much of Xenia,
Ohio, in April 1974.
as-yet theoretical F6 rating as " inconceivable. " ) As the day wore on, the tornadoes
also grew in duration and distance, including one that carved a 121-mile
path across Illinois and Indiana.
The scope and destruction of the super outbreak exceeded all predictions.
The outbreak encompassed 13 states and the Canadian province of Ontario,
stretching from Michigan to Mississippi and from Illinois to North Carolina.
While the 2011 event spawned a larger number of twisters, the 1974 event
generated the largest number of the most destructive tornadoes, including 34
F3 designations, 23 F4's, and seven F5's. The storms resulted in 319 fatalities
and the 2024 equivalent of roughly $5.5 billion in property damage.
In addition to the challenges faced by responders and emergency management
officials, the super outbreak also highlighted disaster relief problems at
the state and federal levels. Among the immediate and enduring responses
to the outbreak was the overwhelming support in Congress of the Disaster
Relief Act of 1974, which was signed into federal law in May of that year. The
act reshaped how such widespread events are managed and administered at
the federal level and made it easier for jurisdictions to apply for and receive
federal aid.
THE NFPA LIBRARY AND ARCHIVE holds a rich collection of books, reports, and photographs that
document important moments in fire history. To provide better electronic access for researchers and
to preserve our unique archival holdings, work has begun to digitize the files of the Fire Record Department,
the original NFPA department responsible for collecting and analyzing information and compiling
statistics about key fires and other events. The incidents featured in " Looking Back " are drawn from this
collection and will eventually be part of NFPA's online archive. For information, visit nfpa.org/library.
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