Phil Parish knew the warning signs this week when he saw tornado conditions approaching his home in Prospect. Fifty years ago, when twisters ripped through Louisville, he was a student at Stivers Elementary.

“I remember that vividly,” he said on a stroll through his neighborhood Tuesday in the aftermath of the latest storm, 49 years and 364 days since that notorious tornado outbreak. “I was in second grade on April 3 (1974) so I remember. I was like ‘OK, that’s a tornado.’”

This time, Parish headed to the basement with his wife and his dogs. And while his home wasn’t damaged, he believes the storm, which tore down five pine trees in his yard, traveled just past his home. A tornado has not yet been confirmed by the National Weather Service of Louisville, but the region was under warnings most of the afternoon.

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said the storm, with an impact “consistent with a tornado,” hit Beechland Beach before moving into Sutherland and crossing U.S. 42 into Hunting Creek, where additional damage was reported.

Those three subdivisions are in the Prospect area. Other areas affected by the storm include Anderson and Nelson counties, where Gov. Andy Beshear confirmed tornadoes touched down, along with Southern Indiana.

The April 3, 1974, national tornado outbreak destroyed hundreds of homes in Louisville, with an F-4 twister that hit the city, and killed more than 330 people in the U.S. Fortunately, the April 2, 2024 storm didn’t leave close to the same footprint.

Cleanup will take some time in Prospect, where the majority of damage took place, but Greenberg said authorities did not believe anyone locally had been killed or injured as of Tuesday night.

Parish was a kid in 1974, but some memories stick with you.

It couldn’t have been nicer that afternoon as he took the bus home around 3 p.m. It was 72 degrees and “perfect” outside, he said, but eerie — “it was like, deadly still” before the sky turned “sort of orange, and everything was just kind of creepy” around 5:30 p.m. The big tornado that hit Louisville blew through about 40 minutes later, he said.

Parish is older now. He’s lived in his Prospect home for 30 years without issue. But he could feel it as the storm approached Tuesday.

He likes to watch when the weather changes, so he sat on his back porch until it felt like a “freight train” was approaching. He went downstairs with his family for a few minutes and emerged shortly after to a neighborhood that had been hit hard.

Parish’s neighbor, Megan Feria, narrowly missed big damage as well. She lost trees in her yard, and her parents’ home down the street was hit by a falling tree.

No one was hurt though, a positive conclusion after a tense ride home for her husband. She was on the phone with him as he drove back from his job while she watched the storm approach through a window in her house.

“He was on his way home from work coming up River Road and was like, ‘Oh, this does not look good,’” Feria said, reflecting as she cleared fallen trees from her yard. “Then I saw all of our flowers that we had hanging on the back were gone. I was like, ‘I should probably head to the basement now.’”

Feria will vouch for Hobby Lobby’s Easter decorations. While the patio furniture in her backyard was knocked over by the wind, the holiday props she’d set up on her front lawn remained unmoved. But several large trees fell on her property, and Parish said he felt like a tornado passed right over their homes.

Down the street, Shaminda Hubert and his wife Irangi were cleaning up as well. Their home wasn’t damaged, but a cherry tree that stood for generations was one of three felled in their yard.

The couple, who have lived in the neighborhood for five years, moved to their basement a little after 6 p.m. with their dogs Luna and Brownie. They’d watched updates from WAVE’s weather crew on their TV but lost power as the storm rolled through. They emerged 15 minutes later to a yard and street covered with fallen tree limbs.

“It was like a freight train going through,” Shaminda said, echoing language Parish used.

Neighbors came out to clear the streets first and worked past sunset Tuesday trying to clear yards — the exit lane to the Sutherland subdivision was blocked by a fallen tree but was opened for vehicles by 8:30 p.m.

Ann Ainsworth’s home didn’t see any damage, but she was out after the storm to help clean-up efforts. She and her husband, who was out with a chainsaw helping other neighbors clear their yards, took cover in their basement when they heard the storm approaching. Neither family knew of anyone who had been injured, but the storms had a visible impact.

“They said it was on Bass Road, which is literally on the edge of our neighborhood, so we were like, ‘OK, basement, basement, basement — to the basement,” she said. “You could just hear it.”

The National Weather Service of Louisville is evaluating storm damage and will release more information in the coming days. Both Greenberg and Beshear called a state of emergency to facilitate cleanup efforts in Louisville and across Kentucky.

Parish, a Catholic, chalked up his good luck to the blessed salt he spreads in the four corners of his home, which is believed to bring protection to property — even the pine trees he lost were a nuisance that “deserved to be blown down.” He might have saved the whole neighborhood, he joked.

Reach Lucas Aulbach at laulbach@courier-journal.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Was there a Prospect tornado? NWS will survey area today