On April 3, 1974 my mom and dad closed on their first house at 1:30 p.m., it was also my Dad's birthday. He owned a gas station in town and at about 6:100, he called my mom, still at our old house with us 5 kids and told her to head for the basement.
It was the largest tornado outbreak in history occurring that day and an EF5 was headed our way.
We only lived about a mile from our new home.
The tornado ripped Cincinnati apart here on the west side that day.
I was 13 and remember it like it was yesterday.
The tornado missed the home we were in, but leveled around 40 houses in our new neighborhood, including the one across the street and the rest were directly behind our new home. After ravaging almost 12 miles of homes by the time it got to our neighborhood, it jumped after it flattened the house across the street and came back down after it had passed over that house.
It was largely intact! Windows were gone, the roof had to be replaced as well as the siding, but so much luckier than the rest.
My dad worked on that home, along with my grandfather, until it was ready again for us, about 6 months later. The neighborhood had changed.
You see, that house was 6 houses from the Elementary school we went to and we knew it well before we moved there and most of our friends lived there.
Our lives had changed because of that day, but my father worked his butt off to get the house nicer than it was before the tornado.
Along with that, he was a volunteer fireman for the local fire department at that time too! You can only imagine how busy they were for a very long time.
I don't know how he found the time to take care of his family, but he did.
I love you Dad, miss you too!
My pick is his birthday - 0403