Former Xenia residents Charlotte and Don Mazak who now live in New Jersey were at Thursday’s ceremony.
On April 3, 1974, the day of the tornado, they lived on Wyoming Drive, in Xenia.
Charlotte Mazak said she “didn’t have the TV on, didn’t have the radio on. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining…”
She said she and her young children took shelter in the middle of a center hallway.
“It’s just beautiful that you all are doing this…because people aren’t forgotten…, Charlotte Mazak said.
The F5 twister killed 33 people in Xenia, destroyed 300 homes and leveled seven schools. The youngest victim was just four weeks old, the oldest was 98 years old. Three days after the storm, fire swept through a tornado-ravaged furniture store in downtown Xenia, killing two Ohio National Guard members who had been stationed there to guard against looting.
Two Xenia High School alumni presented a plaque commemorating the old high school’s cornerstone and flagpole. The plaque, which contains the original cornerstone from the high school that was destroyed in the 1974 tornado, will be housed in the new Xenia High School on Kinsey Road.
The enormous twister was part of the Super Outbreak of Tornadoes in 1974 that spawned thirty F4 or F5 tornadoes in a 24-hour-period. Xenia’s was the deadliest individual tornado of the Super Outbreak. The devastation of the entire storm system ran along a path about 2,600 miles long.
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