Copied and pasted from my review on GR:
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.
5
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