LUCASVILLE (AP) - Ten years ago, Connie Weaver's Sunday started like all her others. She got up early and skipped breakfast before leaving her Lucasville home to celebrate Easter at the Mabert Road Baptist Church in Portsmouth.

She then stopped by the Hill View Retirement Center to visit with her mother. But when she returned to the church for the evening service she knew the congregation's prevailing thoughts would not be the resurrection of Christ.

Just after 3 p.m. that day, more than 400 inmates at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility captured the nation's attention when they seized the L-block and began the longest prison riot is U.S. history. It lasted 11 days and left a correction officer and nine inmates dead in this town of 1,600 along the Scioto River.

''My thoughts were with the hostages and their families,'' said Weaver, whose late husband, Bill, was a correction officer who was called into the prison after the siege began. ''We all knew it would take God's help to get them all out. That's what people do when they're in trouble - they pray.''

By the end of the first day, eight of the 12 correction officers kidnapped were still being held hostage, seven inmates believed to be informants were dead and 19 demands - which would later swell to 21 - were issued.

On the fourth day of the riot, Gov. George Voinovich ordered the National Guard to the prison. It was a clear sign that the use of force was an option if talks between negotiators and inmates failed.

Weaver remembers how unnerving it was to see the troops in a National Guard truck.

''It was filled with people in riot gear and with weapons. It was the closest thing to war I had ever seen and it was right here in our neighborhood,'' Weaver said.

As negotiators tried to bring a peaceful end to the situation, there was a growing show of force on the perimeter of the 1,600-acre facility that did not go unnoticed by inmates.

Guard Darrold Clark Jr., one of the hostages, clearly remembers the routine captives went through whenever rioters became suspicious the institution was going to be taken back by force.

''Every time it looked like they were going to come in, we were taken and put in the middle of the floor,'' said Clark, who at 23 was the youngest of the hostages. ''They were just waiting for the signal to take our lives.''

Clark later returned to work at the prison and remains there today as a correction lieutenant.

Clark was released by the inmates on the fifth day of the riot. Hours before Clark's Thursday release, officer Robert Vallandingham's body was found in the prison yard. Vallandingham, a 40-year-old from Minford, had worked at the prison for two years.

The hostages were often separated in different portions of the block. Clark was suspicious of the information he was provided from inmates about Vallandingham's death, but a radio broadcast confirmed the death.

''I was heartbroken,'' said Clark, who attended the Corrections Training Academy with Vallandingham. ''I was like, 'Who's next? We're all going to die.'''

Ultimately, force was not required to bring the situation to an end.

Five days later, on April 21, inmates peacefully surrendered on the premise that state officials would give consideration to their demands, prompting the release of the remaining five guards.

Two more inmate deaths on the final day made the siege the third-deadliest prison riot in the United States.

In 1971, 32 inmates and 11 correction officers were killed in an uprising at Attica prison in western New York state. In 1980, 33 inmates were killed in a revolt at the Penitentiary of New Mexico in Santa Fe.

Following the Ohio riot, it took more than a year before the L-block was reopened. Besides the cleanup and repair, numerous procedural changes and facility upgrades followed.

The cost of those renovations and upgrades was $41 million, $8.5 million more than it cost to build the facility in 1972.

The uprising led to 50 indictments, which resulted in 47 convictions, two acquittals and one dismissal in various Ohio courts. Among those convicted were five inmates who were sentenced to death.