10:40 AM EDT on Wednesday, April 21, 2004

I was working at Kimball's now Flexcell in Borden . We had just came back inside the plant from our last break of the day. It was so pretty that day . Shortly after returning to work i notice thru the winodw near my work station that the wind had really picked up. Looked at in just a real short time because it had began lighting and thundering , large trees across form the plant were really being blowed around .

About that time the power went off . We waited in the dark for a few minutes then our boss informed us we were shutting down for the day to go on home. Started the drive home up Indiana 60 and just on the west edge of Borden seen devastion like i had never seen before . Houses just totally destroyed. Will never forget what i seen that day.

- Don Morris

Salem, Indiana

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At the time I was employed at Louisville Memorial Hospital and my step-dad was working on a church in Brandenburg Ky. He called and told my Mom and baby sister a Tornado had just touched down in Brandenburg and was headed towards Louisville. My Mom jumped in her car and came to my work and told me and I looked at her and said Mom we live in a gully and there is no way a Tornado can set down in Louisville. I got in the car and as we were on Lexington Rd headed to Bauer Ave in St. Matthew's I happened to look up in Cherokee Park and all of a sudden I screamed oh my God there it is. I will never forget this day as long as I live.

Mom gave the car the gas trying to out run it and as luck had it we made it to the front door of moms house and of course my baby sister had the doors locked so Mom said as soon as the door opens start opening windows and get under something. I knew there was no time so I made a dive in the door and threw my hands over my head. The Tornado had turned a few blocks back and went through Crescent Hill. My sister Helen and her children lived On Steven's Ave off Bardstown Road and when we heard she was hit I begin dialing her number like a crazy person and could not reach her because everyone on the block was using her phone. It was the only one that worked.

My oldest sister Phyllis drove to Mid City Mall and walked out Bardstown Rd to Helen's house and when she called to tell us Helen and her children were fine I begin to weep. I remember Phyllis telling us how the metal was wrapped around the top of trees. Todd my nephew who was ten at the time started walking around to see the sites and found a hundred Dollar Bill on the sidewalk on Bardstown Rd. at Steven's and thought it was ten dollars. If my sister that lived on Steven's had not been waken before the tornado hit she would have died. The window unit air conditioner landed on the couch where she was sleeping. What saved her was my Mom had called before she came to pick me up at work and told the baby sitter that Pappy had called and for her to be on guard. They saw it coming up the street and had made it to the basement. I can remember the next morning having to report to Memorial Hospital and going by cab and seeing all the devastation and how homes were wiped out in a matter of minutes.

I will never forget getting to work and all my coworkers running up to me and hugging my neck because they knew what time I had left the Westend and they knew I had to be in the middle of it or to close behind it. I will never forget how all our fellow Louisvillians stopped to lend a helping hand to those who needed it. I Pray I will never experience this again. Once is enough and Thank God I had a step-dad who sent out the warning for us to take cover. Once is enough for me and I. Pray I will never see another one. And to top things off the Church Pappy was building was the only thing left standing on that side of the Road. He told us when he seen it on the ground he begin to ask the Lord to protect the Church and when the twister hit it bounced over the Church and remained on the ground until out of sight. We drove through Brandenburg a few weeks ago and you can still see that things will never be the same as they were thirty years ago.

- Anonymous

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I was a junior at Oldham County High School at the time. My family hadn't completely gotten over my father passing away only a couple of weeks earlier. This tornado was the first real problem my mother had to deal with on her own.

We had a basement in our house so when the warnings began to come we all headed downstairs, except my aunt. She insisted on standing in the front doorway watching the funnel clouds come and only when she absolutely, positively HAD TO did she join us in the basement. She would say later that if something was going to kill her she wanted to know what it was.

Our house was the third of four on our side of the street in LaGrange where we lived. We were all huddled together downstairs with WHAS 840 on a little transistor radio, listening to the reports. For what seemed like an eternity but was only in reality a couple of minutes, the roar of the wind was one I will never forget. A freight train sound doesn't describe it but is about as close as I can get. After it passed, we went outside to see that the first two houses sustained some serious roof damage, as did the house on the other side of us, but ours wasn't touched. We found out later that the twister went down the hill and basically leveled a trailer park about a quarter-mile from us

It took a couple of years for us to get used to the idea that simply because a storm was coming it didn't mean a tornado. My mother, for at least five years afterward, would routinely head to a shelter every time a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for the area. It's something I will never forget.

- Rick Ewen

LaGrange, Kentucky

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Never believe the Weather Reports on TV.

April 3rd started out as a beautiful, sunny, day. We watched the morning TV show, “Omelet”, and after hearing “sunny and warm”, me, my husband, and our three-year-old son started out to dig up trees on my father’s farm in Union Star, about 30 miles from Brandenburg.

After digging up a few trees, the sky started getting darker and darker. My husband wanted to leave, but I said,” It isn’t going to rain. They said so on TV”. Soon the wind began to whip the trees around wildly, and he insisted, “We are leaving”.

When we arrived in Brandenburg, we couldn’t even tell where we were, it was so dark. It was blackness like none I had ever seen. The only thing we could see was where the beam from the headlights was. The thunder was horrendous. We remarked that it was like you hear in the mountains, because it was constant, not claps, and even though we turned our 8 track tape player up full blast, we couldn’t hear it over the “thunder”. I begged my husband to pull over, because he could not see where he was going, but he refused.

We just kept going, and when we got home to Hillview, the phone was ringing. It was my Dad, checking to make sure we made it home. He said “Turn on the TV. We are having tornados!” That was when I realized what had really happened to us. The next week we made the trip back and timed it to see where we were when the tornado went over us. We were on the bypass next to the WMMG tower, which the tornado took out, along with the barns on the hill across the street. But our little Chevy Nova was nestled in between two banks in the road. Either that saved us, or my husband’'s insistence on keeping going.

The funny thing is, that before that day I was terrified of storms, and since then, I have no fear whatsoever. I actually enjoy watching them. In fact, when the tornado devastated Bullitt County a few years ago, we watched it go around from the front porch of the farm we now own in Shepherdsville.

- Monna Redden

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Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but, I could have sworn it was an unusually hot balmy day and the air wasn't moving what-so-ever.

I was 21-years old and working at Our Lady of Peace (Now Caritas-Newburg Rd) on the evening shift.

I was on the top floor and remember having looked out the window not 20 minutes or so before the tornado struck. I called a co-worker into the room where I was working. This room looked out the back of the hospital toward the airport. I distinctly remember asking her if she didn't think the sky looked really odd. There was this hugh black cloud overhead that extended back all the way to the airport and beyond. I could see a defined tail coming off of it. The tail ran parallel to the end of the cloud and looked miles long. I'm guessing this was the start of the funnel cloud, before it started its way down to the ground and it's path of destruction. Because there was no rain or wind at that time, I dismissed the whole thing and continued on with my work.

Not long after, the wind picked up and all the windows started humming one after the other coming up the hall. It sounded as if they were playing the musical scales and a freight train was running overhead. The noise was horrendous. I think the flight or fight rush of adrenaline kicked in for all of us working that evening at the same time. We all were racing into the hallway and gathering patients together to get them and ourselves to safety. We did not leave the floor until everyone was accounted for, the whole time wondering if the whole building wasn't going to blow away. Lucky me, I just so happened to be at the head of the column of people and had to open the door to lead everyone to the basement. The wndows are very tall, large windows with the screens on the inside for safety measures. It looked and sounded as though they would blow any minute and we would all be cut to shreds. Fortunately, those old windows and screens held and everyone made it to the confines of the basement safely. Thankfully, I worked on the south end of the building because the tornado came right down beside the north end of the building. The building didn't take too much damage other than some roof shingles. There was a lot of destruction to the property with trees torn and wires torn down.

We spent the rest of the evening in semi-darkness with emergency generator lights keeping us from complete darkness. None of us could call out to find out what was happening at home and had no idea if anything was still standing outside. When we were finally able to go home for that night it was near impossible to get there due to blown down trees, and live wires jumping all over the pavements. My mother drove only a few blocks to come pick me up, but, had to beg rescue and emergency workers to let her through. She really didn't think she would get through with the live downed lines and emergency workers trying to turn her away. She did get through to me and we did get back to the house, but, it was one scary ordeal.

What that did to the Highlands and Cherokee park is unimaginable. It looked like a bomb had dropped with windows blown out of the store fronts and cutains hanging outside the windows. Trees had mashed cars flat all along Eastern Pky way down to the Daniel Boone statue.

It seems like another lifetime ago since that happened and I hope it never happens in this lifetime again!

- Lucy Woodson

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In 1974 I was 9 years old, living on Hillcrest Ave and a 4th grader at Emmett Field Elementary School. I remember the afternoon of April 3rd as being usually warm, abet rainy and windy. Around 3pm I went outside in an old pair of shorts that I had out grown. I remember watching the wind blow my neighbor's trees around. I went back inside and took off the ill fitting shorts and started watching Presto the Magic Clown. When a weather bulletin came on the program, I told my Mother about it and she went out on our second story front porch to watch the storm blow up! Soon, she realized she was looking at a tornado and announced that we needed to grab the dog, open a few windows and get down into the basement ASAP. When the tornado was actually nearest my house, I was likely just getting into our basement. That's when I realized I had no pants on!

After the noise died down, Mom sent me upstairs to get some clothes and the dog's leash. Only later did we realize our house could have been severely damaged by the storm. As it was, we were lucky. Our chimney blew off. The neighbor's trees I had been watching an hour or so before were gone. Destruction was everywhere. Busy Hillcrest Ave was a tree-strewn parking lot for smashed up cars. I remember hearing the sound of chainsaws going almost non-stop for weeks afterward. Everyone in the neighborhood slowly started walking around the block, observing the damage. By that evening, members of the Kentucky National Guard were stationed a few feet from our front door. Mom baked them cookies and sent me out to deliver them. We lived without electricity (and better yet, no school!) for a week. Hundred year old trees were suddenly climbable in their horizontal state. What fun that week was for a 4th grader. Thank goodness no one I knew suffered any serious loss.

- Marion Dries

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I was sitting in art class at Fern Creek High School. I was in the seventh grade and we were on "double session" that year due to the construction, so we started our school day at 12:30 in the afternoon. Everyone in my class thought it was a drill when the sirens went off and we were told to climb under the tables.

Later, during the clean up, two of my older brothers were involved in the Civil Air Patrol and helped with the clean up efforts. I remember volunteering to make sandwiches and help deliver meals to the clean up volunteers in the Highlands. At one point I remember being driven through Cherokee Park in a truck with some of the volunteers and seeing the devastating sight of the hundreds of ruined trees. I remember how sad it was to see all those beautiful trees literally torn up and laying on their sides.

I was 12 and it was terrifying.

- Carmen Johnson Cardwell

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I was working at Stewart Dry Goods at the time in Accounts Payable and our office hours were 8 am to 4:30 pm. We left with no knowledge of any problem. There were people in another area of the seventh floor who had a radio on and the people who got off at 5:30 had to stay late. I remember the rain being so hard you could barely see to get to the bus stop on 6th Street. I was soaked to the skin by the time I got to the bus stop. The bus windows were fogged up and we had no idea there was any problem till I got home and Daddy was listening to WHAS on the radio and Dick Gilbert's report. I ran to find a map to see where the thing had hit. (We were living at 5407 S Third.)

What is generally forgotten is that the thing formed over the Auburndale area and took out a tree on Seneca Trail. I don't know why I didn't take a photo of that tree lying over on a concrete block house about half way between Third Street and Southside Drive. It was on the North side of the street. LARGE Oak tree! I clearly remember seeing this huge tree's roots showing as any tree does that gets uprooted in a storm. (I have photos of the aftermath of Kroger's fire in Iroquois Shopping Center; the first Derby balloon race, the Mini-Marathon, but none of this tree.)

Rumor had it that a few roof tiles were taken off the house at the top of the cliff on the South side of Kenwood Hill.

- Martha Berry

University of Louisville

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I graduated from Marine Corps Recruit Training on 2 April 1974. My parents, Jack and Wanda Glass of Valley Station, drove to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C. to attend. I rode back with them and arrived home at 12:00 AM April 3. I got up early and washed and waxed my "ride"... a 1969 'El Camino' truck. As a 19-year-old American male, having just completed Marine Corps Basic Training, I wanted to spend some quality time with 'my stuff'. I did a complete detail job on that vehicle. I even used a new product, "Amor All" on the vinyl stuff. Well, as the old saying goes, "wash your car and it will rain", Louisville had the day of the tornado.

I was out and about in the Shively/P.R.P./Valley Station area of Jefferson County. I was driving south on Lower River Road when a bad storm broke out. I don't remember the exact location, but somewhere in P.R.P. I noticed a cloud that had a different, sort of a green color, come across the Ohio River. I drove to my dad's house and he was watching the storm. He made a comment that this storm looked bad. Later we listened to the news broadcasts about the tornadoes of this day. All I can say about this is, I had just completed Marine Corps 'Boot Camp' the day before, had really cleaned up my truck and a major tornado event occured.

- Tony Glass

Sgt., U.S.M.C.

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I was in junior high school at Westport H.S. My friends and I had walked home from school, cutting through Mother of Good Council's property, to get to our homes in Plantation. We noticed how still everything was and how vibrant the colors were - almost fluorescent. There were no birds chirping, no dogs barking, no sound at all. It was very eerie.

When I got home, I did my usual thing - dropped my books in the chair by the front door, went to the bathroom, then turned on the TV. On all four channels they were saying, "TAKE COVER!" My mom was at work at Fawcett Printing and my dad was on a job site in Buechel. They both kept calling me in a panic because I was at home alone. My most vivid memory is looking out my front door, watching as the tornado hit Northfield. We didn't have a basement, so I opened all the windows, closed the doors to the rooms off the hall, grabbed the dog, a pillow, a blanket and a radio, laid down in the hall and fell asleep.

Mom and dad got home around 10:00 p.m. Now that I'm a parent, I can understand their feelings of helplessness with their only child at home alone during a disaster. I would have been frantic!

- Christina Thomas

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I was a Senior at Pekin Eastern High School on April 3, 1974. On that particular day, my last class of the day would have been 2 hours long, however the teacher had to be out that day, so the principal told our class that anyone wishing to go home early could do so if we brought a permission letter from our parents.

I went home the night before and explained the situation to my father and he was more than glad to give me permission. "You and your brother can take that time to go up to the farm and load up the disc that was still there into the truck and bring it down here." We had moved into town a few months prior to that and still had a few items that still needed to be moved out of there, including some farm equipment.

The afternoon of April 3, I left school at 1:15. I can still remember how the air outside felt as I walked out the back door of the school to the parking lot. It was hot and humid, so sultry you could just about cut the air with a knife. I remember my reaction to the much different weather, as it was the first real sign of summer on the way, which was a good sign in the mind of a seventeen year old boy. I went home to meet my older brother Dennis, who would go with me to the farm, which was about 10 miles northeast of Pekin.

Leaving the house at about 2: 30 p.m., I was keeping a cautious eye to the sky. A storm was rolling in, and it was about as wicked looking overhead as I had seen it in a long time. We kept the radio on WHAS as we drove out the country road toward the Bunker Hill area, our destination. My brother listened to WHAS most all the time when we were on the road. I was more of a WAKY fan, but I wanted the station that kept us informed about this deteriorating situation, since I was not the kind of person that liked to be left in the dark, especially today. I still can remember the weather bulletin announcing a tornado being reported at Hardinsburg. That put a strange feeling in my stomach, because we didn't catch whether they were talking about Hardinsburg, Indiana or Hardinsburg, Kentucky. Hardinsburg, Indiana was to the southwest of where we were. Not only that, but the radio was becoming progressively more staticky from the storms' intense electrical activity. Dennis finally turned the radio off about a mile before we arrived at the farm.

We both stepped out of our truck after he backed up to the disc we were to load up. Just about the time we started to pick it up, the rain cut loose and began to pour on us in torrents. We ran to the cab and climbed in, hoping to try again after it cleared up. That never happened. The rain continued to beat down on our vehicle as we sat in the open field near the house where we lived just a few months before. We started to notice a pecking sound on the roof of the truck, and quickly realized it was hailing. The hail balls gradually increased in size, and the rain was soon completely replaced by the worst hail storm I have ever witnessed in my entire life. It was like a blizzard of egg and golfball sized ice chunks that seemed to go on for what I thought was an eternity. I can still remember the eerie feeling of near panic as the deafening sound of the hail battering the body of that truck continued on. Eventually the hail began to give way to a smattering of debris, first twigs and leaves, then branches and increasing to the point of boards and plastic, insulation and paper falling all around us. Dennis cautioned me, "Keep your eyes open. There's got to be a tornado around here somewhere."

Soon after that, the hail and debris subsided. Dennis started up the truck and commented, "Let's get out of here...maybe some other time." We drove onto the road and had just started back in the direction of home, when it all started up again. He slammed on the brakes and we sat there in the middle of the road, hoping it would stop again. Right about that time I heard him exclaim, "There it is"! I looked to the south of us and saw an awsome sight that I can still close my eyes and see today. A large gray-white funnel cloud, lifting off of Daisy Hill, appearing to stretch from horizon to horizon. I jumped out of the truck and started to run. Dennis asked,"Just where do you think you're going"? I replied," I'm going to find a basement or somewhere to hide from this." He replied,"Get in here! It's not gonna hit here, it's south of us already." I climbed in the truck and he slowly crept around a corner to the front of a neighbor's house; all the while both of us had our eyes fixed on the most mesmerizing sight I can remember in my life. The wind started to blow and shake the truck, so we jumped out and moved to a spot where we could have a better view of the twister. It eventually disappeared off to the east in the haze of the storm as it marched on to Hanover where it would continue it's destructive path.

Very few times in my life have I ever witnessed anything as awsome and memorable as on that day, April 3, 1974. I would have to say thank goodness for that, because once is enough.

- Scott Miller

Pekin, Indiana

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I recall very well the evening that tornadoes ripped through this part of the country. I was 9 years old and remember spending the night in the basement with family and neighbors listening to the static on the radio from lightning as local broadcast icon, the late Welby Hoover told of severe weather entering our area.

It was seemingly one warning issued after another all night long. Residents of this area had barely healed from the aftermath of twisters that demolished Salem School and surrounding areas a few years before and now another wave of storms. In the 70's the construction of underground storm cellars was popular and many times a few people would go to the cellar even if there was moderate, non-severe cloudiness in the sky.

The whole weather thing inspired me to love radio broadcasting and before his untimely death in 1986, I was fortunate to be able to be involved in severe weather coverage with Hoover several times and continued the service for several years.

Technology has changed a great deal. The only thing we relied on then was teletype from the National Weather Service and at the very best, the print out was slow. I recall with my first few storm events, my job was to watch the weather wire and when the alert bell would ring I would watch the information appear on the special "impression-type" paper and call out "tornado warning" or "storm warning" depending on what the condition was and a few minutes later, it would finally print the county or counties affected and that information would be relayed. When complete, the entire weather alert on paper was given to the announcer.

Since that time I have been the voice to the Lake Cumberland Area for severe weather coverage giving out hundreds of watch and warning bulletins, tracking storms and weather systems and many times being several minutes ahead of the National Weather Service in advising of severe weather approaching. A few years ago in November a severe thunderstorm came through the area very quickly around the time school buses would be loading kids. We contacted the school board and advised them to hold kids in class until the storm passed. It's all about serving the community.

I've seen a great amount of change. Now, we have radar information and internet capabilities that bring a vast amount of data with the click of a mouse. My awe of severe weather continues even today serving as the leader of the severe weather team on The Wave... 92.7 in Russell Springs - Columbia - Jamestown. While my full time job is owner and operator of a funeral home in Russell Springs, when severe weather threatens, I'm watching it long before the clouds enter our area.

April 3, 1974 the day weather changed my life and regretfully, the day never forgotten by those who lost family and property from Mother Nature's fury. If my experience in broadcasting can safe a life then that makes it worth while.

- Daniel G. Wilson

Russell Springs, KY

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April 3rd, 1974… The cloud was moving across the field, or should I say it looked like a cloud. My family and I were on our way home from my aunt's house in Louisville. My father worked for Delmonico in Louisville at the time and occasionally we would ride with him. We lived in Big Springs at the time and would take SR-333 home, at least I think that was the road remember I was 6 years old.

My father was driving and I was looking out the window at the cloud moving across the field. It looked like the sky on a horizon over a hill only there was no hill and there were supposed to be trees outlining the field this time there wasn't. The rain and lightening started within minutes, then the hail and my father looked nervous and was driving faster than normal.

I think he knew at that point he was not outrunning it, he yelled "that cloud is a tornado" all I remember is how large it was. Then things started to fly through the air, I thought we were very far away from it but I remember hay flying everywhere I buried my head in my then 15 year old brother’s chest and my father drove very fast out of it’s path. The next day there were pictures of the telephone poles with that hay sticking in them like darts. I’ve been told that this was the tornado that hit Brandenberg.

- Sandra Queen

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I was 11 years old, at the time, and had heard of, but never been close to being directly affected by a tornado.

I was in the 6th grade at Irvington Elementary School. The middle school was actually old Irvington High School, before the formation of Breckinridge County High, and we all called it The Big Building. It had two stories above ground, and a basement and housed the 6th-8th grades. There was a smaller 1-story building that housed the 1st-5th grades.

When the tornado warning went out, we were all put into the gymnasium. It was one of the old fashioned gymns with I beams. Even though it was on the ground floor, I wondered when the first I beam was going to fall in on us. Luckily, nothing happened, but over the following weekend, the roof fell in on the top floor of the middle school.

A friend of ours came to get his two daughters, and took me home as well. My mother was never so happy to see me, and my father, coming back from Louisville and seeing the damage and destruction on our road, was never so happy to see that both his family and our house and farm were not affected.

Over the next few years, I got to where I could more or less look at the sky and almost like an instinct, predict what was going to happen, a good percentage of the time. I guess I learned to respect the weather, which is what everyone should do.

- Anonymous