Today marks the 42nd anniversary of the Super Outbreak of tornadoes, which hit a wide area of the eastern US stretching from Alabama to Michigan. Until 2011’s massive outbreak, it was the largest outbreak of tornadoes in one event on record, with 148 reported tornadoes, 319 deaths, 5484 injuries, and $3.5 billion in damage. I was living in Michigan at the time and remember my church sending down a group to help with the clean-up in Xenia OH, which suffered a direct hit by a massive storm. My husband was growing up in Birmingham AL and has his own memories of the event.
You can read more about the Super Outbreak at Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_Super_Outbreak or from an older NOAA publication at https://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/storms/index.html. This also has links to storm impacts by state.
There is also a 10 minute video by James Spann and J. B. Elliott describing the outbreak at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmfk0ItQjBE&feature=youtu.be.
