This song is inspired by memories of the monster tornado (5 miles short of F5) that hit Louisville -and a building I was sheltering in - when I was a small child. The storm struck in the late afternoon while I was at church choir rehearsal with my oldest brother. We rode out the storm in the church basement and when we came up after the danger had
This song is inspired by memories of the monster tornado (5 miles short of F5) that hit Louisville -and a building I was sheltering in - when I was a small child. The storm struck in the late afternoon while I was at church choir rehearsal with my oldest brother. We rode out the storm in the church basement and when we came up after the danger had passed, the choir room we had been in was destroyed and the neighborhood around us devastated. Ironically I may have been in more danger walking home from church (no way to drive as the roads were impassable) than when I was in the church basement with the tornado coming over - live wires and debris were everywhere.
The photos at the start this video are of the tornado itself; there are also pictures from the streets by the church, and which my brother I had to walk down to get back home. One picture is also of my grandparents' house that was destroyed by the storm. The destruction was of course hard to comprehend as a little kid. My only real memory of that day was the feeling of absolute safety I felt when we reached home - a feeling I realize now permeated my entire childhood and for which I'm forever grateful.
Facts about that day: at the time of the storm, the Louisville tornado was, at that time, part of the largest outbreak ever of tornados in US history (its record not broken until the tornado outbreak in 2011) That day there were 148 confirmed tornados that struck several states and even up into Canada The storms wiped out entire towns (e.g., Xenia Ohio, a tiny town of a few hundred lost dozens of people) and caused hundreds of deaths. Some good came out of that day however too. Following the storms, the National Weather Service implemented the Fujita scale to measure storms and also greatly increased investment in preparedness.