F5: The Devastating Tornado Outbreak of 1974

by Mark Levine

On April 3, 1974, all hell broke loose in the central United States and southern Ontario. In the next 40 hours of the "Super Outbreak," 148 record-breaking tornadoes tore through 13 states, from Michigan to Alabama. The twisters killed more than 300 people and left over 5,000 others injured. F5 recounts the nearly unbelievable destruction wrought by a "perfect storm" system that experts calculate could occur only once every 500 years. A truly riveting read.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Science, Nature, Historical

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Mark Levine is the author of four books of poetry: Debt (1993), Enola Gay (2000), The Wilds (2006), and Travels of Marco (2016). His poetry has appeared in a number of anthologies, including American Poets in the Twenty-First Century: The New Poetics (2007) and American Hybrid (2009), among others. His work of nonfiction, F5: Devastation, Survival, and the Most Violent Tornado Outbreak of the 20th Century (2007), is a history of the outbreak of 148 tornadoes across the United States in early April 1973. He has written for magazines, including the New York Times Magazine, Outside, the New Yorker, and Bicycling magazine.

Levine is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. An associate professor of poetry at the University of Iowa, Levine has taught in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop since 1999.

~www.poetryfoundation.org

Reviews

[Daniel Montague · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Land has no memory, wind has no memory, and it does not take long before actors in distant dramas retreat into the privacy of the unremembered past.”

Almost everyone who has lived in the wide swath of the United States known as the Midlands east to the Midwest and south to Appalachia has a tornado story. These mercurial storms that can reach upward of 300 miles per hour are beautiful in their devastation. I remember my granny describing funnel clouds as she was going to go to a church service on Palm Sunday of 1965. While I loved my granny’s ability to spin a yarn, the reliability of her stories were sometimes questionable. I vaguely remember huddling in a friend’s finished basement during a cookout. Whether it was due to my youth or just being excited to see such a refine basement (a side bedroom!) I do not recall any fear about the impending storm. We also had tornado drills in which we were led to the hallway and told to crotch down along the wall. Even at the time this seemed an exercise in futility. I guess it is better than the active shooting drills of today. This book tells the story of the tornado outbreak that churned a path of destruction on April 3rd, 1974 covering 13 states. It focuses on the northern Alabama county of Limestone which saw the deadliest of them, including the highest strength, F5.
Overall, this book had many things that I enjoyed and a few that I did not. The author, Mark Levine did extensive research into both the scientific aspect and the personal effect of this particular system. He is adept at weaving information and creating a mostly cohesive story. Even in conducting interviews with people some 30 years after the event he is able to make the storm come alive. No doubt, many of those interviewed were happy to keep the past behind and drudging up a day that changed their lives had to be a challenge for both interviewer and interviewee. We get eyewitness accounts many of which were quite harrowing. Whether it was the sheriff who had to dig through the wreckage to find bodies or the families who lost members, there were not any stones left behind. There is also a chapter on the man who the tornado system is named after: Ted Fujita. This raconteur and showman was skilled at creating scientific methodology for storms and self-promotion.
While the storm and its affects were fascinating the build up to the storm felt overwrought and frankly unnecessary. I need another rehash of Watergate and the Vietnam War like another hole in my head. Yes, the country was in a turbulent time (when is it not?) and the political climate was at a low point but many of these facts seemed ungermane. No doubt it is important to show the racial climate and how its role impacted society in Limestone County but the national narrative felt forced. Race-baiting George Wallace was governor at the time so that was also an important storyline. But certain cultural touchstones like Evel Knievel’s exploits felt like a waste.
This work was a solid 3 for me neither horrendous nor captivating enough to garner a higher or lower score. It did yeoman’s work but did not elevate the subject matter.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A historical look at the Super Outbreak of tornadoes that hit the south/mid-west on April 3, 1974 as seen through the eyes of those living in Limestone County, Alabama.

The story is choppy, with many different people profiled from just prior to the thunderstorms through to the recovery and clean up phases of the storm. It is really hard in the beginning 25% of this book to keep everyone straight in the reader's head. There is a great story here, but too much excess on politics, the end of Vietnam, and national news (such as the oil crisis) suffocates the tornadoes story. The long science lecture on how thunderstorms and tornadoes are made I could have done without; it slowed down the story considerably. Likewise, the chapter on the different disasters happening that same year was a snooze.

I did enjoy the side journey of Mr. Fujuita, the scientist whose life-long work gave us untold information about tornadoes - this side journey eventually crossed into the story of April 3, 1974, making the two stories cohesive. The story is at times gory, with descriptions of injuries; if you are sensitive to those things, please take heed. There are descriptions of children dying and recovery of dead children.

I'm still glad I read this book, as it gave me an understanding to how natural disasters were handled before the 1990s introduction of disaster prevention and response and the birth of the Emergency Management career field.

[Judd Street · Rating 3 out of 5]

April 3-4, 1974 brought a tornado outbreak like no other to the central United States. In the entirety of the 1960s, there were 9 tornados in the US that qualified as an F5 on the Fujita scale. Within a five hour span on April 3rd, there were a half-dozen. And, where a typical year would see roughly 10 F4 tornados across the country, there were 24 such twisters during the 'superoutbreak' that day. It was a storm of remarkable proportions.

In F5, Mark Levine is primarily concerned with telling the stories of those who found themselves in the storm's path. He's a strong storyteller, using recurring characters and striking vignettes to weave together the many tales of community members in Limestone County, Alabama. If you're interested in reading about the stories of those who lived through one of the most remarkable storms in recent American history, I'd highly recommend the book.

However, Levine's strength also becomes his downfall. Where the stories make the book eminently reasonable, they also end up obscuring some of the really rich themes that could have been explored in the episode. The man behind the self-named Fujita scale, for instance, appears in a couple of short vignettes, but this idea of normalizing storms into a standardized scale isn't really unpacked with any richness. We encounter repeated questions about why people did or didn't take shelter; did or didn't prepare for such storms; or did or didn't choose to come back after the disaster... but neither are these deeper questions explored in a rich way. I grant, of course, that Levine was aiming to write a best-selling book for the popular press, but I think he could have pushed harder at grappling with these questions.

All told, though, F5 is a readable, engaging volume on a remarkable moment in American history. Tornados often suffer from a passing attention; capturing our eye for a few short moments of goose necking at others' devastation, then continuing on to our own lives by reminding ourselves that these plights affect others instead. Levine has put together a great collection of stories from this historical episode - stories that are well worth preserving and examining more closely.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very basic and to the point account of the "super outbreak" of April 3-4, 1974. The book concentrates primarily on Limestone county, Alabama. After a short history about the area and some of its residents the book is almost entirely about the tornados and damage. Then has a brief aftermath. Never going into intricate detail but giving enough to give you a good idea while keeping the names and places easy to follow. A good account of events. This was a story that could have gotten bogged down with to much info but the author kept it clean and to the point. A really good book about an amazing and catastrophic event.

[Denise Chojnacki · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was one of the most confusing books I've read. It was divided into two sections. The first section started laying the foundation for the characters in EXTREME detail. I almost put it down for that reason but then it started going in warp speed listing the effects of the tornado in almost a list fashion. Thus ended Part I. Part II was the actual documentation of the tornado's path and destruction. This part had me reading intently up to a point where the author broke out into a bunch of other "disastrous" events that had happened that year including the Nixon scandal and others. This didn't really fit in with the story at all and then he took us back to the actual depiction and finished with an epilogue of characters that had survived the tornadoes. This could have been a really well-done book but was just oddly sectioned and confusing which is why it took me so long to finish.

[Jon Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought a used copy of this book at the Dickson Street Bookshop in Fayatteville AR earlier this year. This is a fast-paced yet slightly disjointed read. It kept my mind occupied all day after having a root canal procedure. I know that is somewhat faint praise, but there you have it. It is entirely possible that I am slightly disjointed, not the book. Four out of five stars.

[Schmacko · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an adult, I have come to realize that I have a love for real-life disaster documentaries, especially ones that pit humans against Mother Nature. Humanity always has a reputation for extreme hubris, a quality that Nature tends to destroy in single, dramatic swoops.

F5 is about a set of vicious tornadoes and the Fujita scale, a scale recently adopted in the early 70s. Just as it was being considered, one of the most ugly super-cells hit mid-America, spawning own 100 tornadoes in less than 2 days. In a single county in Alabama – where our story is set – eight tornadoes set down, including an F5 (310+ MPH winds) and another F4 or F5, they cannot tell. People still remember April 3, 19734 for this unexpected devastation.

Mark Levine does almost everything so well. He introduces the science, he talks about the people and their lives, he brings in the storms, and then he measures the aftermath both in physical and emotional costs. Levine has a talent for setting up dread merely by talking about the layout of a local trailer park. He finds the families already in stress, and he throws them into the whirlwind.

Here are my small complaints:

- He explains, as best he can, how tornados are formed. However, it’s still pretty dense description. A drawing or two would’ve helped. As it was, I had to go online – especially targeting several Youtube videos – to understand better. In fact, after rereading Levine, his description was thick, lacking in metaphor and imagery to help us understand.
- As a reader, I sometimes was confused in the characters (real people), forgetting if Frank worked for the electric company, or if Walter had the fancy house. A couple things would’ve helped. More description in reintroducing the characters would’ve helped, and a subtle approach at this wouldn’t have seemed clunky.
- Also, a map of the county and the houses – who lives where – would’ve helped. I had trouble visualizing the roads, etc., and again had to revert to the Internet and Google Maps, where the roads have changed significantly.

Still, Levine’s emotional work is amazing. Here is a first-hand account of a 16-year-old girl, after she was caught in the storm with her boyfriend and his Mustang.

"In a moment your life changes. It’s that sudden. The moment is over. It was so quick it might as well not have happened. You ought to be able to forget it, or to pretend it gone. You don’t know why it happened to you and not someone else. And since it happened to you, why did you survive it? Others didn’t.

It’s as thought something was revealed to you inside the tornado, something you need to know in order to go on, in order to get out the other side of it. But for the moment you can’t recall what it is. So you go back there, back inside it, you feel the wind trying to pull you apart, you go back and tell yourself: This time pay attention to every detail.

You wake in pain. You can’t move your leg. You see it at the other end of the bed, under the hump of the sheet, and it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the rest of you. In any case, the leg might not be yours for long. You hear the doctor whispering to someone in the shadows of the room. “I can’t promise she’ll keep it,” he says. You close your eyes.

Sometime later, you wake in pain again. Your father is sitting beside you. He takes your hand. You turn your head and catch your reflection in the basin near the bed. It is not you, really, but some ugly, beaten, sorrowful new version of you.

You are afraid to ask about the boy who was driving. Afraid to even say his name if that means he must be answered for. You would rather not know.

Your father tells you that he and your mother went out looking for you during the storm. When they passed the compacted Mustang, your mother went hysterical, fainted, and had to be taken home. Your father lied to her and told her it wasn’t the same car, all the while praying to himself that if you and the boy were in bad shape, the Lord would take you quickly and not make you suffer.

Well, here you are anyway."

If one believes in a Divine Force that created the universe, the message of severe storms doesn’t seem to be one of mercy, grace, and blessings. Instead, this god is either vengeful or, more likely, so uncaring that only Probability rules. Perhaps the great lesson of nature is to teach us that we small humans do not have dominion, and that we do not control. We merely must figure out how to survive. As the saying goes, “We cannot control the waves, but we can learn to surf.”

For the most part… Sometimes the wave is a tsunami, and then it is only anyone’s guess who survives and who doesn’t.

[Shay Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

F5 is the story of the April 3-4, 1974 "super outbreak" of tornadoes which spanned from Alabama to Ontario and from Illinois to Virginia. In 17 hours time, a staggering 148 tornadoes appeared, including two killer twisters which hit Limestone County, Alabama, the focal point of Levine's book.

The title derives from the Fujita scale (now the Enhanced Fujita Scale) which categorizes tornadoes into any of six groups, from the F-0, which might topple your patio furniture, to the terrifying might of an F-5, whose winds can exceed 318 miles per hour, and can disintegrate a sturdy home in under thirty seconds.

While Levine does touch on such things as how twisters form, he doesn't let his story become bogged down with too much dry science. He focuses most of the book on a handful of residents of Limestone County who lived through the storm, some of them forever altered physically, all of them changed in some way by what they experienced. Woven throughout, are snapshots of the United States in 1974, a country freshly withdrawn from the war in Viet Nam, and led by a president who would soon resign in disgrace. In Limestone County, schools had only been integrated a few years before, and wheelchair-bound George Wallace had been re-elected by a large margin.

In F5, you'll meet a black pastor who sat with his wife and three sons on the living room sofa as the storm intensified. Soon enough, the roof flew away and all of them found themselves airborne inside the fury of an F5 tornado. Then there is the teenage couple who are sucked out of their car and hurled into different parts of a nearby field. Later that night, as she is being wheeled down a hospital hallway with one of her feet hanging on only by a few tendons, she sees her boyfriend being wheeled toward her. She calls out to him. The dazed young man's reply: "Who are you?"

Levine does spend a fair amount of time talking about Ted Fujita, or "Mr. Tornado" as he came to be known. During a research trip into the areas hit by the twisters, the single-minded Fujita and his young assistant stop to eat in a local restaurant. Fujita cannot contain his excitement at the opportunity to collect and analyze so much data. He raises his glass and proposes a toast. "To tornadoes!" The assistant looks around nervously at the people around them, some who had buried loved ones. "Perhaps you shouldn't do that," he advises his famous mentor.

F5 is entertaining, but does take nearly half the book in setting the scene. Once the twisters arrive, however, it is hard to put down. I do recommend it.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having grown up in Limestone county, it was fascinating to read this account of the tornado outbreak. Fortunately my immediate family did not move there until 1976, but I grew up in the shadow of this terrible storm as my great aunt and great uncle and cousins were seriously injured during the course of these events when their house in East Limestone was demolished with them in it.

Several people I know were featured in this book- including Brother Fred Lackey, who was my pastor for 16 years, Jason and Mark McBay, who were2 guys I went to school with and my bus driver- Donnie Powers. It was really interesting to be able to visualize faces, places and streets while reading the accounts. I lived less than 2 miles from Coffee Pot and frequented the convenience store there as a child.

Having a better understanding of this storm also explains why almost EVERY house has a storm shelter in this area of the country and why most residents of this area are hypervigilant when it comes to severe weather.

As a book I thought it was well written, but there were some points where I found some of the additional information to be a little out of place. However, it was a good read and would highly recommend it to anyone who was interested in severe weather or that area of the country.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very fun book, and forgive the turn of phrase, but it's a rip-roaring ride. It's not a particularly insightful book - the narrative of what happened in Levine's chosen county is very straight forward, a solid case of "this happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened." He very much relies on the details of the event being compelling in and of themself - there's little he adds by virtue of his writing style or organization. The best chapter of the book, for me, was the one that detailed all the other major disasters around the globe in 1974 - it did more to put the tornado in context, and to problematize the way we define 'disaster' than anything I've read.

Still, that said, I was mesmerized by the book, especially the story of who lived and who didn't, and the tale of the woman who walked three miles on a severed foot. *makes big round eyes*

[Jennifer Wardrip · Rating 5 out of 5]

F5 is a really good non-fiction book that reads like the best type of fiction -- action, adventure, thriller, family drama. It's the true-life accounts of what many people lived through in April 1974, when the US suffered the deadliest outbreaks of tornadoes on record.

I read this book in a day, mostly because I didn't want to stop reading once I had started. Mark Levine has truly done his research, but he's written the story of these tornadoes in a way that never seems overbearing or gets so bogged down in pure science that you want to stop reading.

A great book and highly recommended.

[SouthWestZippy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book walks you through April 3,1974 when 148 tornadoes covering thirteen states killed hundreds and injured thousands of people. Six of them were a category F5.
I wanted to like this book. I am fascinated by storm stories of survival and destruction. This book is all over the place with information and does a horrible job of sticking to the subject. Goes off on a tangent about things that have nothing to do with the story he is telling. I would have like a better time line. It would have given a more accurate and a bigger picture of events.

[Stefanie Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I lived through a tornado outbreak in 2011. It was a wild day and night, and there was so much damage all over the area. That was nothing compared to the damage that the tornado outbreak of 1974 produced. This book was devastating to read. People went through so much in such a large swath of land. So many were injured and killed, and so much was destroyed.

[Katie Bliss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty fascinating look at what may be the worst known tornado outbreak on record, at least in the U.S. It was horrifying, the first-person perspectives especially, and the fall-out as far as damage and lives lost substantial and enduring. The scientific reason for this storm went above my head, but it was still interesting. I'm glad I don't live in tornado country.

[Kim S · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Fast-paced, compelling, and at times quite brutal. I thought the author was fairly eloquent, even poetic at times, that he went into just enough detail about the people whose stories he told, and that, for the most part, he handled delicate and devastating subjects with sensitivity.

[Whitaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really great book shows us how everything is great and worth to die for

[Joseph Meyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tl;dr: It's an engaging book about the tornado outbreak of 1974 in Limestone County AL. However, the book drags at points over it's abundance of context. As well, the overall structure of the book is a bit disorganized.

Longer Review:

50 years ago, the United States experienced one of the worst tornado outbreaks in recorded history. In the span of 24 hours, 148 tornadoes trekked through areas from the fields of central Illinois to the mountains to Eastern Kentucky to the forests of Northern Alabama.

With such an expansive geographical region, Mark Levine zooms into one particular spot, Limestone County Alabama. It was here that an F-5 impacted the community of Tanner and surrounding localities. It focuses on the story of a few families and their experience in the tornado. The writing is gripping and chaotic, which in other cases might slow it down, but it helped me to get a feel for those few hours after the storm. The uncertainly, the chaos. The books switches POVs frequently, overlapping the stories of Limestone County in a gripping way. It can sometimes be too quick where you lose sight of who is who, luckily at the beginning of the book there is a character list to keep track of.

Overall the book is great, but where it starts to crack some is in the other chapters. The book is very context-heavy, which is in no way a bad thing, but it is executed weird here. There is background on severe storm development, the meteorology behind tornadoes, Dr. Ted Fujita and his quest to understand tornadoes, America in 1974, among others. Many of these are great for understanding the broader story, but at times it feels as if the author is getting too far into a tangent that does not deal with the original story.

For example, in the middle of the tornado narrative, an entire chapter is dedicated to the other "disasters of 1974" including Watergate, Vietnam, the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, and more. If this chapter was at the beginning of the book, I wouldn't have an issue with it, but since it's placed right in the middle of the story it feels off. One can also make the argument that details over Patty Hearst or Vietnam can be omitted entirely and you wouldn't lose much of the narrative.

Overall, this is a good book that explores the tornadoes of 1974. If you're looking for a broader overview of the outbreak, this book dedicates a chapter to the other tornadoes of the event but not much more. It almost exclusively focuses on Limestone County. However, where it shines is in its stories and narrative.

[Peter Corrigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Amazon review on June 3, 2018: Twisters..up close and personal

Very good and often moving account mainly of the personal impact of several tornadoes in Limestone County, Alabama during the Super Outbreak of April 3, 1974. He a painted picture of American life in 1974, warts and all. It doesn't seem so long ago, yet the strides in every walk of life but especially tornado detection and warning are striking. The section on Ted Fujita was very interesting as well and as a meteorologist working for the NWS for over 30 years, I would say the scientific description of the outbreak was adequate, although a weather map or two would have been nice. He also covered several watershed moments in meteorological research including the The Thunderstorm Project in the late 1940s, the 1953 Waco tornado and the Fargo tornado of 1957. But the true strength of the book is in the personal stories and descriptions of the horror and mayhem these storms can inflict.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd give this book 4.5 if I could. I reserve a 5 for a book that I think is an absolute must read. I must state that I am fascinated by tornados so that likely adds to my enjoyment of this tale. At the time of the events of this book I was 12 and living in Ohio. I remember the events in Xenia very well, my brother was dispatched there as part of the Ohio National Guard. I loved hearing the in depth stories of families that were impacted by these events, often with tragic results. In those days tornados and warnings were much more scary because we didn't have all the advance warning that we have these days. I did not mind the style with a bit of jumping around and was able to follow just fine. I have to admit holding the results of Donnie and Felicia to the end kept me in suspense as we resolved what happened to all others!

[Chy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The prologue to this was so well written that I was hooked immediately.

However I did not stay that way for long.

It’s a well written and well researched book, but the biggest issue I had with this was that the author chose to cover SO many people. It not only got confusing quick trying to remember who was who, but the author put so much detail into each persons life story that at a certain I mentally checked out.

Another thing that I struggled with was every few chapters the author would step back from the tornado to write about other disasters, movies, politicians etc that was happening in that same year. It didn’t add anything to the story and could have been left out entirely.

[Sheila Myers · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a lot of great information presented in this book, especially the stories of the people hardest hit by the disaster. Unfortunately, the information is presented in what seems to be a random pattern. The stories of the people are interrupted by the presentation of the scientific information which would probably have been better placed at the beginning of the book. Also, there are a couple of chapters of completely unrelated material that has nothing to do with the topic.

[Eric Winter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit uneven, but thrilling, terrifying, and heartbreaking in many places. A little too much political commentary for my taste, but the book is as much about the people of the time as it is the events of that terrible day, so I can forgive that. I tore through the last half of the book, wondering which of the many actual folks in the narrative would live or die (horribly, in some cases - descriptions of injuries are very graphic). A quick but worthy read.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent time capsule-like view of the Super Outbreak of '74. Levine weaves threads of individual's and family's lives together with the socio-political climate of the time in rural Alabama and the advances of Fujita to create a tapestry that fully illustrates the multi-faceted effects of this phenomenon.

[Josine · Rating 4 out of 5]

so well structured. could have done w/o the italics

[Lucy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Survivor’s accounts of the 143 tornadoes that cut a path through mid-America, over 2 days, in 1974. Harbinger of things to come?

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am totally fascinated and terrified of tornadoes, so I was really interested in this book. I was mildly disappointed.

[Evan · Rating 2 out of 5]

To give a you an idea of the subtle difference between an F4-rated and F5-rated tornado (today the ratings are calculated slightly differently under the enhanced Fujita, or EF scale, btw), the first will completely level the most well-built home and leave some traces of its material on the foundation. The F5 adds that extra kicker of sweeping away every shred of the building from the foundation. Not much consolation in those differences for the homeowner, if, indeed, said homeowner managed to live through either of them.

The worst F5 of all time, at least in terms of complete devastation, was likely one that hit the Double Creek Estates neighborhood of Jarrell, Texas, in 1997. Entire families were lost and in some cases their bodies, if found at all, were rendered into something outside the realm of human recognition. Material was pulverized into dust. Some cars were never found. The tornado left a scoured mud field and utterly bare foundation slabs. For anyone above ground it was an absolutely unsurvivable storm.

But that is by way of tangent. In citing that example, I might to some degree be replicating the major problem in Mark Levine's book, F5, but on that I will later elaborate.

For an F5/EF5 tornado to be classified as such, it must hit a home and sweep it away. To date, the Fujita scale does not count measured wind speed as justification for rating a tornado. If that were the case, a lot of tornadoes are probably EF5s but aren't classed as such because they hit no buildings: necessary for the rating. It's an imperfect system, but it makes sense, for what it is.

The epicenter of Levine's tale is sleepy Athens, the county seat of Limestone County in northern Alabama, one of the most notoriously active tornado regions on earth. His date is April 3, 1974, the day of the infamous Super Outbreak, the worst tornado outbreak of the 20th century. The Athens area was hit by multiple twisters that day, including an F5 and an F4 that wiped out the community of Tanner. People who somehow managed to avoid the F5 were clobbered by the F4 that came less than an hour later. Some were hit by both.

To strain or twist (no pun intended) the metaphor, this book is like an F5 that fails to hit any buildings, or only sideswipes them. Levine's book has the power, the stuff, and all the makings of an F5 of nonfiction. His reportage is exceptional, topnotch. His writing masterly and descriptive, full of flavorful observation and detail. Overmuch, alas.

And then comes the vast cast of characters, their narratives sliced and diced and rejoined in a rather scattershot way. There are books that do this and can pull it off, like John Hersey's classic, Hiroshima. This one, not so much. I've read many nonfiction books that juggle ample dramatis personae with varying degrees of success. Doing it successfully is a real art form, and it requires the best editors in the business. Good editors can reign in such authorial excesses and keep things on track. Alas, this is an example of a book that knocks itself off the rails time and time again.

Then comes the Baby Boomer parade of historical markers; the references to streaking and Vietnam and Watergate and many other cultural contextual tangents that are excessive and probably more fascinating to Levine than to the reader. I did appreciate the sections on Dr. Ted Fujita, the great tornado scientist who invented the Fujita scale. Fujita surveyed the damage in Limestone County, and to Levine's credit he does pick up that narrative later in the book. I appreciated Levine's inclusion of a fact that I had never known: that a nearby nuclear plant nearly suffered a meltdown as the result of damage from the tornadoes. Shades of Fukushima.

I will admit, though, that my interest in reading tornado books is really to get down to brass tacks: to talk about the history of the tornado, where it went and what it did, and, yes, to capture some semblance of the lives of those disrupted or devastated by it. Unfortunately, Levine's approach seems more aimed to carefully delineate in great detail the lives and family trees of his cast, and it's just too much. For fans of, say, Southern Gothic fiction,or those who appreciate a well-drawn portrait of a Southern town and a good cross-section of some its citizenry, Levine delivers. You hear the gospel and taste the chitterlings.

I rooted for this book; really wanted to like it, and even contemplated a four-star rating about halfway in. It is what it says it is ("one town's survival..."), so there is no falsity in advertising. Its organization and excess of detail, however, did not persuade me and I have to concede that it wore me down. At no point did I feel the power of momentum, of the gravitas of the event. There are nonfiction books that are page turners. For me, this was not one of those. Your mileage may vary.

If you are really interested in tornadoes I would recommend a website called extremeplanet.me.

(This review is copyright 2016 KPRay@Ky)

[Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good,quick read. Loved the personal stories. Made the tornadoes impact more real.

[Mia Lucia Manifold · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times this book is in total control of the reader. Gentle readers may feel overwhelmed , readers that are shock proof will be deeply engaged , and all readers will at some point feel the book nudge, or shove them into a new understanding of nature's power ability to change lives.. At times this book becomes so tangled in its many threads that the reader may not successfully shift their focus.Then it is like watching television when someone else has control of the remote and you find yourself struggling to make sense of a plot only later catching on that it is an entirely different plot.The writing is extraordinary in places and it is worth the mental fatigue one may develop keeping up with the multitude of transitions among sub-plots to find these jewels of word play. Levine is especially strong when writing philosophically about extreme weather , good at writing about technical aspects of meteorology ,(but assumes more prior knowledge then many readers have ), and excellent if not perhaps too speculative about the inner workings of individual's mental processes.I would not read this book if not prepared for extreme and graphic descriptions of carnage related to physical trauma ,or if one lives in tornado alley , or is prone to phobias or has trouble sleeping. Do not read before bed. If you have a high tolerance for being reminded that life is unfair ,and random proceed into the book confident that you will most likely not get bored ,and feel free to skip portions if you do since this is a book that can be read in sections and while missing the larger plot will still provide insight and for many entertainment.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating story about the devasting series of tornadoes that shattered the south during April, 1974. Focusing primarily on the devastion and damage that occured in the small town of Limestone, Alabama, and the surrounding area, this book brings the reality of severe storms and tornadoes to life. Levine begins by introducing main participants and survivors of the storms. You know their lives and personal stories before the storms arrive to change their homes, lives aand dreams forever. It is truly remarkable at the strength these people had as survivors. This series of storms included 148 tornadoes in a 17 hour period, including 6 F5 tornadoes. Their cumulative paths covered 2,584 miles. 335 people were killed and over 6,000 injured. The total cost of property losses was conservatively estimated at $600 million. Nothing, of course, could replace the value of the personal losses of so many people. This series of storms was closly studied by Dr. Ted Fujita. The knowledge gained of tornado behavior and destruction was at least a benefit of the disaster.
If you are interested in any stories of weather phenomenon, storms, or if you have ever experienced a tornado or live in an area frequented by these terrible storms, this book will be enlightening.