TORNADO ANNIVERSARY

It was 39 years ago this week that nature’s vio­lent side was unleashed in our area in a way that we have never seen before and never seen since. The Super Out­break of 1974 is the worst recorded tor­nado out­break on record. The out­break brought a com­bined 13 tor­na­does to our area includ­ing Pauld­ing County, Hills­dale, and Mon­roe coun­ties. In all, 148 tor­na­does were con­firmed over 13 states. The twisters injured nearly 5,500 peo­ple and killed 315. If each tor­nado dam­age path were put end to end, the dam­age path would end up being 2,598 miles long. The num­ber of tor­na­does were high in the out­break, but the num­ber of dev­as­tat­ing tor­na­does also set records.