A twister destroyed hundreds of homes 50 years ago in southeast West Chester (Union) Township.
On April 3-4, 1974, the infamous “Super Outbreak” struck portions of Ohio and a dozen other states. The extreme weather event is often described as one of the top two worst tornado storms in the history of the United States.
According to the National Weather Service in Wilmington, Ohio, dozens of tornadoes resulted in 159 deaths and more than 4,000 injuries in the Tri-state region, with hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage. Xenia and southwest Cincinnati neighborhoods along the Ohio River were hit hardest.
The village of Pisgah bore the greatest brunt of severe weather in West Chester Township. A newspaper report from April 1974 showed a map of the tornado’s path, moving from the southwest to the northeast, ripping apart everything in its way across major thoroughfares of Fields Ertel, McCauly and Dimmick roads.
Contemporaneous reporting estimated 215 homes were destroyed at an average cost, back then, of $35,000 each. Another 92 homes suffered 40-50 percent damage and 50 mobile homes were destroyed or damaged. About $4.5 million worth of household items and motorized vehicles was lost. The financial impact documented in our community alone was more than $14.4 million (almost $90 million in today’s dollars), which didn’t account for damage to public property nor costs to clear debris.
Public service employees, the Lakota Local School District and several national, state and local agencies all sprang into action and pulled together in the cleanup and recovery effort.
“The first week after that tornado went through, in seven days, I worked 106 hours,” said Bob McGuire, former Superintendent of the West Chester Community Services Department and, for a time, volunteer firefighter.
Bob’s been retired since 2000 but he recently sat down for an interview with West Chester TV and its Community Storytellers playlist, an oral history project celebrating our community’s 200th birthday bicentennial anniversary.
“I was on the fire department at that time. We got my employees in, took our backhoe over there and anyone and everyone we could find with a chainsaw, cutting open that road up and down McCauly Road, past Sunburst (Drive) and up over the hill there,” McGuire said.
John Hunkler, who served our community for more than 50 years as a volunteer firefighter, dispatcher and career police officer, remembers first hearing reports of the disaster on radio while on a return work trip home from the Dayton area, which would’ve been just west of ground zero in Xenia. He, too, recounted memories for the West Chester Community Storytellers series.
“That’s my first time using a bulldozer – John Keehner’s bulldozer,” Hunkler said. “I got to drive it, piling stuff up in the field over there,” Hunkler said. “I spent four or five days out there helping them.”
Through the 1970s and even into the early 1980s, West Chester was a one-stop light, rural town with a steadily growing population of between about 12,000 and 25,000 people. As our community grew, so too did the need for public safety services.
Today, residents and stakeholders benefit from the service and protection of the full-time, professionally trained men and women of the West Chester Police Department and West Chester Fire Department. Public safety services are dispatched 24/7/365 by professional communications officers working in the state-of-the-art 911 Communications Center. A dedicated team of dispatchers operates this facility as a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) center.
Not only do West Chester dispatchers respond to emergency 911 calls and send help, but they also activate our severe weather warning sirens, both here and in neighboring Liberty Township. Eleven emergency sirens are scattered across West Chester. Sirens are only intended to alert those who are outdoors at the time to the threat of impending severe weather situations, like tornadoes.
Now, just like way back when, residents should never rely on one source of information for emergency alerts. Anytime the threat of severe weather exists, citizens should tune in to local media outlets, radio and television, and have a battery or crank-operated NOAA weather radio available.
Are you prepared for severe weather? Find a list of emergency preparedness resources on the Township website and connect with West Chester on social media.
Continue reading for a news story clipped from the Journal-News about the 1974 Super Outbreak.
TORNADO AID ROLLING
By Mike O’Connor, Journal-News April 15, 1974
Union Township and Mason tornado victims have registered, signed on the dotted line and filled out all the forms. Now they can only wait for the Federal Disaster Assistance ball to start rolling.
Though township trustees had to give the ball a gentle nudge last week to obtain heavy equipment help from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, it appears everything else is running smoothly.
Butler County Civil Defense Director Irene Lewis reported that about 128 families were processed through the Pisgah one-stop disaster aid center Friday and Saturday. Most of the concern, she said, seemed to be with temporary housing for victims.
Availability of housing, in either permanent dwellings or mobile homes, will become more clear later this week as information gathered over the weekend is studied by Federal officials.
Mrs. Lewis said most of those processed through the Pisgah center or the Mason center Sunday had lost their homes entirely. Many others who did not register for assistance over the weekend may have already done so at other one-stop centers, or were fully covered by insurance, she said.
The Hartwell one-stop center was expected to remain in operation through today.
Union Township trustee Dave McGinnis said area Federal disaster recovery official Dean Pieper inspected the Pisgah site and advised those who need temporary housing to apply now.
An office is located at 11175 Reading Road, Sharonville and the one-stop center in Hartwell is also take [sic] applications for housing, he said.
The Hopewell disaster headquarters Sunday afternoon was the scene of “tension” as new tornado warnings were issued throughout Butler County. It was the same in Beacon Hills for those homeowners clearing debris on Easter Sunday.
Things returned to “normal” however when the warning was lifted.
Civil Defense director Mrs. Lewis said the Hopewell headquarters will be “phased out” slowly, and that no more contributions of food or clothing are being asked. She said there is still a serious need of heavy equipment to move debris.
Lakota schools began classes again today, complicating matters at Hopewell, one of the state’s largest elementary schools.
At the disaster site, cleanup is gradually reaching the point where further progress depends obtaining heavy equipment from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said officials.
Township and county police continue to patrol the area regularly, but Union Township patrolman Leroy Nagel said today that the sight-seer problem has decreased significantly.
The township fire department has all but abandoned any more plans to burn homes which need to be completely leveled for rebuilding. The process was creating problems in smoke and charred debris, said officials.
Emile Munch, Union Township Disaster Fund chairman, reported Sunday about $2,000 had been collected at the Home Federal Pisgah branch so far.