The History Channel, original podcast.

History this week, April 3, 1974.

I'm Sally Homes.

It's evening in Gwynne, Alabama, and the Alexander family has been hold up in their basement for hours.

Betty and Branford, Alexander, are sitting with their pregnant daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren.

Branford's elderly mom is in a rocking chair.

There's a storm raging outside, and they know there might be a tornado coming.

After a while, Branford goes upstairs to check on things, and then Betty hears him yell,

everyone needs to take cover in the basement.

Just as he reaches the top of the basement steps coming back to join them,

the electricity goes out.

The family makes their way to a back closet with a flashlight.

Then they hear a breaking glass and the roar of a storm.

Betty later recounts the story to a writer named Charles Jordan.

She says they could feel a terrible pressure in their ears,

and the kids were crying, and there was the sound from outside of trees falling on the house.

It felt to Betty like they were in their three or four minutes,

but she later learned it was just 16 or 17 seconds.

When it's over, she says, it seemed as if we had lost our hearing,

and everyone was confused.

But they're okay.

No one in the family has been hurt.

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