survived had an estimated wind speed of 158 -206 miles per hour. As the tornado formed behind us we were being drawn into its vacuum as it sucked up everything in the surrounding area. We each held on to one another as we all crawled to the cellar; trying to avoid all of the flying debris.

Looking back now the F-3 tornado was a piece of cake compared to the F-5 of 1974; which danced across our farm with its wind speeds of up to 318 miles per hour. That kind of power is considered to be "the hand of God."

As we watched the sky early that afternoon we knew by the reports and the existing conditions that this storm system was one to be respected. We watched for a short time from the front porch, and then everyone was ordered to go to the cellar.

Our minds knew the danger, but our curiosity won out in the end. We stood at the root cellar and watched as two tornadoes in a distance formed into one massive tornado which filled the sky.

It swept across the land scooping everything up like a giant vacuum cleaner on steroids. Entire houses were disintegrated as the tornado made its undetermined path across the countryside. Cars were picked up and carried away for hundreds of feet, and trees were debarked and uprooted from the ground.

The intensity of the noise seemed to last forever as everything in the root cellar began to vibrate and shake. Even the ground began to hum as the big storm slowly passed overhead. As the tail end of the tornado passed by the door of the root cellar was ripped away from its hinges. The door was immediately sucked into the tornado along with my father.

Peering out at the landscape as we came out of the cellar we were shocked to see nothing left; everything was gone. The ground looked as alien as the surface of the moon with bits of debris scattered here and there.

Nothing familiar was left, everything had been sucked up by the tornado and deposited over a five mile area. The only thing left on the farm were pieces of debris no bigger than your hand, everything else had been disintegrated.

My father was found battered and bruised lying in a ditch some 200ft from the cellar. Certain articles and several pieces of memorabilia were found miles away from our farm several months later. We never rebuilt after that storm. We took the insurance money and bought a new place to live; somewhere out of the eye of the storm.

I learned that day that we weren't meant to endure all of life's trials; some of them could be avoided. So, the choice is up to us whether we endure the storms of life, or if we hide when we see the dark clouds approaching in the distance.

We usually don't talk much about that day anymore. All of our fears and memories of that day are hidden somewhere in the vastness of our minds; hidden until the next summer storm arrives.

Now, I look at the sky and the clouds in a different way; a foreboding sort of way. I begin to wonder: "Will there be more storms in life? Or is this just a prelude of things to come?"

When we moved in 1974 after the storm, my life changed dramatically. I met the man of my dreams and we married and bought a place of our own. We now have three children and eight grandchildren. Today as I look at my family, I now realize that this family would never have been; if it hadn't been for the summer storm.

Note: This is a fictional account of the "super outbreak" of tornadoes: April 13th - April 14th, 1974.

Learn more about this author, Kevin Lamb.
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