>>Part 1 Intro >>Part 2 Ground Zero for Disaster >>Part 3 Tornado Forecasting >>Part 4 Forecaster Recalls >>Part 5 Outbreak Inspires Perez

Tornadoes have fascinated The Weather Channel's Kim Perez since she was a little girl. The infamous scene in "The Wizard of Oz," where a tornado sweeps Dorothy's home up into the air, first spurred Perez's interest in this mysterious weather phenomenon.

This childhood enthrallment instantly became a life-long passion when a mammoth F5 tornado passed dangerously close to her home on April 3, 1974.

Perez was just 11 years old when the largest tornado event ever witnessed in the United States spawned six massive, F5 tornadoes. One of them slammed into the Sayler Park section of Cincinnati, just 10 or so miles away from Perez's home. She recalls listening to warnings on the radio and tracking the storm on everyday road maps.

"Finally, we watched it from our porch," said Perez. "It was just mesmerizing. My entire family was in awe. But then my dad said 'Get downstairs, now!'"

Perez huddled in the safety of the basement with her family as the monstrosity whisked by, miraculously sparing their neighborhood. But it wasn't until a few days later that Perez fully understood a tornado's incredible fury.

"It was nothing like I've seen before," Perez said as she recalled the aftermath. "To me it was incredible, to see what the wind could do, just devastate and destroy in just seconds."

The experience clinched Perez's desire to pursue a career in meteorology.

"I knew from that point that was what I wanted to do, study tornadoes," Perez recalled. "Ever since that day, I was reading every book I could find on tornadoes."

Perez pored over dozens of library books focusing on severe weather. One book in particular, "Hurricanes and Twisters" captured her fancy.

"I was the only person who ever checked it out," laughed Perez.

Years later, still fascinated by severe weather, Perez wrote to a local TV weatherman to learn how he got his start. He told her he joined the Air Force. So that's what she did.

Perez was eventually stationed at Offutt AFB in Omaha, Nebraska, where she worked in the tropical weather section. Although hurricanes and tropical storms did indeed interest her, Perez still aggressively pursued her childhood dream of studying tornadoes.

"There was this other department, called the severe section, but there had never been a woman in that section," Perez said.

But that didn't stop Perez. After persuading her supervisor to give her a shot, Perez became the first woman to serve in Offutt AFB's severe section. She chased tornadoes, spotted a few funnel clouds, but to this day Perez has not seen anything like she saw when she was 11.

>>Back to Storms of the Century	>>Part 1 Intro >>Part 2 Ground Zero for Disaster >>Part 3 Tornado Forecasting >>Part 4 Forecaster Recalls >>Part 5 Outbreak Inspires Perez