Thursday marked 40 years since a deadly tornado hit Xenia, Ohio. The EF-5 twister killed more than 30 people and injured more than 1,000 others. The tornado was one of the strongest on record.Destruction that day extended across the Tri-State. As storms rumbled through the area on Thursday, survivors of that super tornado outbreak marked its 40th anniversary.Watch this story  |  View photos from the tornadoAll together 148 tornadoes hit the eastern United States on April 3, 1974.Margaret Martin heard most of it unfold over a radio in her neighbor's Sayler Park basement, while her home was ripped apart."I just didn't know what to think," Martin said, as she remembered watching a tornado barrel toward her Sayler Park home.Forty years later, she's still at a loss for words."I can't describe how scary it really, really, really is," she said.The fear and the emotion of that day came back quickly as she flipped through her photo album. Only 27 years old at the time, with a 3-year-old little girl, Martin said softball size hail was their warning."You think you're going to die when you see something like that coming at you," Martin said, referring to a funnel cloud outside her window. "I guess I went into shock and the neighbor next door started screaming, 'Get over here kids! Hurry up!' because we didn't have a basement."Moments later, it was over."We heard a couple of windows break and we thought, 'Oh, we're OK,' and then we went out and walked outside and we couldn't believe what we saw," Martin said.It took a year to rebuild her home, with one important upgrade."I told my husband and my father that I was not moving back here unless I had a basement in my house," Martin said.On the stormy 40th anniversary, she was thankful she lived to better appreciate what's easy to take for granted."Things are nice to have. But as long as you have your family and your health, that's all you really need," Martin said.