Many tornadoes find Xenia, a place the Shawnee Indians called "the place of the devil wind" or "the land of the crazy winds" (depending upon the translation) before the white man appeared on the scene. Records of storms go back to the early 1800s. Tornadoes are more frequent than people realize; local records show 20 tornadoes in Greene County since 1884.
April 4, 1974 is, of course, the day Xenia was etched into tornado history. Since Xenia is only about 60 miles from Columbus, Central Ohio could have easily been hit; Jack Nicklaus reported pieces of Xenia debris fell on him as a storm passed over his Muirfield. I was living in Toledo then, but when Xenia was hit once again on September 20, 2000 I lived in Columbus and remember. I am sure I have seen other dates listed but I am unable to find them now.
While probability of a tornado strike is difficult to predict, the odds of any one building being hit by a tornado in the U.S. are on the order of one in ten million. Yet some buildings in Xenia have been hit twice in my lifetime of 41 years.
What could be the reason? It is that Xenia is at the eastern edge of Tornado Alley , kind of a final destination for storms? Is it that Caesar Creek ravine to the south making some kind of strange air current? Or is it just random chance? I don't have an answer. But when a town that was hit by the strongest tornado in recorded history is also known hundreds of years earlier as the land of the crazy winds, it makes you wonder.
But one thing is for sure: Xenia is one town where no one takes a tornado watch lightly. It is a shame such a nice little city has to live in this kind of fear.
