Todd Hollst, host of the Sunday Edge on AM 1290 and News 95.7 WHIO, will be hosting a special radio documentary today at 6 p.m. on WHIO Radio.
>> The 1974 Xenia tornado, no place to hide
Xenia 74: 9 Minutes in April, is a radio version of an Edward R. Murrow Award-winning TV documentary Hollst produced in 2004, while working at WHIO-TV.
Hollst was living in Beavercreek at the time of the tornado and remembers the day vividly.
“Like most small children, I had no idea what a tornado was. I just remember my dad barricading me, my mom and little sister in an interior bathroom and putting a mattress over our heads,” he said. “We weren't sure where the storm was heading — we just heard the warning on WHIO radio for Greene County. After driving through Xenia a few days afterwards with my parents, the gravity of moment became imprinted on my memory. The damage inflicted on Xenia was overwhelming."
>> Xenia building that survived 1974 tornado will get upgrades
Following the 6 p.m. presentation of Xenia 74: 9 Minutes in April, Hollst will be hosting an hour-long live call-in show beginning at 7 p.m., where people with memories of the storm and the aftermath are invited to call-in and share their stories.
“The accounts of the survivors, along with the sounds and images of the storm and its aftermath, are incredibly compelling and important. I live in Xenia now and I can tell you to this day, whenever storm clouds begin build in the western sky, many folks who were there in '74 pause a moment a consider the possibilities of what may come,” he said.
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