148 Tornadoes in 18 Hours (Replay)

HISTORY This Week

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History, Education, Society & Culture

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2023

⏱️ 23 minutes

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Summary

April 3, 1974. Across America, many people wake up this morning thinking it will be a normal day. But in the next 24 hours, almost 150 tornadoes will hit the United States. It will be then the largest tornado outbreak in the nation's history. Why did so many deadly tornadoes hit on this one day? And how did it spur life-saving changes that are still with us decades later?

This episode originally aired in 2021.

Thank you to our guests Greg Forbes, former severe weather expert with the Weather Channel, and Atmospheric Sciences professor, Jeff Trapp, from the University of Illinois.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The History Channel, original podcast.
0:03.2	Hey history this week listeners, it is Sally here.
0:05.8	This week we are going back to one of our most popular episodes
0:10.3	about the devastating tornadoes that struck 13 US states in just 24 hours.
0:16.8	Almost 50 years later, it's important to remember the role this
0:20.3	super outbreak had in moving science forward,
0:23.7	giving us better tools to predict and adapt to all the extreme weather patterns we see today.
0:29.2	Here's the episode.
0:32.8	History this week, April 3rd, 1974.
0:39.1	I'm Sally Helm.
0:41.6	It's evening in Guin, Alabama, and the Alexander family has been holed up in their
0:47.1	basement for hours. Betty and Branford, Alexander, are sitting with their pregnant daughter
0:53.2	and son-in-law and grandchildren. Branford's elderly mom is an rocking care.
0:58.7	There's a storm raging outside, and they know there might be a tornado coming.
1:07.7	After a while, Branford goes upstairs to check on things, and then Betty hears him yell,
1:13.0	everyone needs to take cover in the basement.
1:16.8	Just as he reaches the top of the basement steps coming back to join them,
1:21.1	the electricity goes out.
1:23.0	The family makes their way to a back closet with a flashlight.
1:30.0	Then they hear a breaking glass and the roar of a storm.
1:36.0	Betty later recounts the story to a writer named Charles Jordan.
1:39.6	She says they could feel a terrible pressure in their ears, and the kids were crying,
	...

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