Once again, Xenia has been "blown onto the map." Kenny Cline coined that phrase way back when the '74 tornado was attracting national attention. There were flyovers by President Nixon, reports on all the network evening news programs, even documentary crews roaming through the streets and schools and taverns of our small, previously sleepy community. The recent storm gave me a sense of "deja-vu all over again." We were the lead story on Headline News for a day.
This time it was my kids who came home with stories of flattened buildings and cars tossed through the air like toys. Our power was still on when the reports started coming in. The teenagers grabbed flashlights and headed into town to see what had happened. This time there were cell phones to keep in touch so we weren't afraid for them to go. They called back with stories of collapsed buildings at the Wal Mart shopping center and the police closing streets. Our power finally went out and everyone in town got on the phones to check on friends and family.
The latest edition of the "Tornados of Xenia" has been just as devastating to those that it plowed into, but strangely enough, it has been a little like Tornado Lite to those of us who remember the '74 Tornado. I don't minimize in any way the losses suffered by those who died, were injured, or who lost their homes or jobs because of this storm. It's sort of like recovering from a heart attack and then later breaking your arm and saying, "This isn't so bad, considering..."
I got to thinking about the natural disasters that have hit our area since my childhood. My first memory is of a hail storm that killed dogs and broke windshields and dented wood siding on our house around 1958 or so. An ice storm struck our area in the winter of 1959 or '60 causing large tree limbs to break and many power lines to fall. I recall one small oak tree in our yard bent over until the top touched the ground.
Of course the big one was the '74 tornado. The wind tossed sheets of plywood around in my yard and ripped off shingles and broke branches. We jumped in the car as soon as it was over. We thought that there might be some broken down trees and other minor damage, just like all the storms that I had experienced in my life up 'til that day. We only made it as far as the Post Office before it was impossible to drive any further into town and it became more than obvious that there had been something unprecedented going on in Xenia.
Cars were overturned, power lines were dancing across the streets, and storefronts were smashed. People were wandering aimlessly looking at all the devastation and wondering how they managed to live through it. It took hours to get to Arrowhead where the worst damage was. Entire blocks of houses were smashed to splinters. National Guard troops were called in and the streets leading into Xenia were closed. We didn't have any power for 4 or 5 days and the list of dead and missing swelled and then shrank as people turned up here and there. In the end over 30 people were killed, but the stories of miraculous survival far outnumbered the deaths.
In 1976, a blizzard swooped down on us with such force that the entire county was paralyzed. The wind was so strong at my house that a steady blast of icy wind blew through the the crack around my door, leaving a small pile of snow in the kitchen. My car was buried up to the fenders in the driveway. It became impossibly dangerous to try to leave the house for several days.
In August of 1982 my own personal tornado dropped nearly 2 inches of rain in a few minutes. Several trees were uprooted in my yard. A huge Oak fell across Jasper Road and landed on the hood of a passing car. The wind flattened my barn and ripped off a room addition from my neighbor's house. 10,000 people were without power. Houses on Louise Drive and a church on Columbus St. were heavily damaged.
Around 1985 it got below zero for a month in a row and water lines everywhere began to break as the ground froze down to over 24 inches below the surface. In 1989 or so another tornado touched down near Shawnee Park, ripping the roofs off of several houses that had been hit once before in the '74 tornado.
So storms and natural disasters are nothing new
around here. If we're not involved in the actual devastation, we tend
to go to see the damage, shake our heads in disbelief or relief, and offer
to help. Occasionally the dark underbelly of humanity comes out and
steals whatever is left when the storm has passed, adding insult to injury.
I read about a store in Wilberforce that was looted while the power was out
and it made me sick. In general, though, we Xenians tend to pitch in,
help each other and go on with our lives. And wait for whatever comes
next. © 2000 Alan D. King