Greensburg, KS Tornado

[CrumCowgirlMama]

Last night a large tornado ripped through the town of Greensburg, Kansas flattening the entire town of 1600. I was watching KAKE 10 at 10 last night when the warning went out. I went to bed and got up at 2:30 this morning because I was unable to sleep, I flipped on the tv to KAKE 10, and they were doing unlimited coverage on the storm. When they showed pictures of the damage, my heart just dropped.

As of now they have two confirmed death, although several media outlets have given numbers ranging from 3 to 4 deaths. I believe there were 63 that were seriously injured. Parts of Highway 54 have been closed, as well as another highway in that area. The city is being evacuated as I type this.

My hearts goes out to all the victims. My prayers are with those who lost everything they had. I cannot even imagine what they are going through.

Here is a link to KAKE, it shows photographs of the large tornado, and damage as well.
http://www.kake.com/breakingnews/7347256.html

[Janet Harrington]

Channel 12, KWCH, is reporting there are 6 dead in Greensburg and 1 dead in Stafford County, which is north of Greensburg.  Charlie Wiseman, who lives at Pratt, said that the entire town is destroyed.  His instructor's business was completely blown away.  Just a clean spot there.

[Wilma]

This reminds me of the tornado that hit our neighborhood 8 years ago, almost to the day.  We had been watching the sky and it looked bad, but there was no sign of a tornado and my husband was an experienced tornado spotter.  He stayed outside as long as he could and less than 10 minutes after he came in, we were hit.  I had been watching TV and there hadn't been any report of a tornado being spotted.  All but one of the neighbors to the southeast of us, less than a block, was wiped away.  A grandmother and her baby grandchild were killed and another person died later.  Two other neighbors had to evacuate their homes.  We had been caught by the edge of it and didn't suffer enough damage that we had to leave our home.  It had formed and come down less than 10 miles from us and there had not been enough time for it to be reported and warnings to go out.

[Janet Harrington]

I watched the weather men as they were giving and getting these reports.  Greensburg had plenty, plently of warning.  However; I understood from the coffee shop that one family was in the basement, the toronado blew the house away and put a car in the basement hitting one person.  So, shelter did the best it could.  This tornado will probably be rated the highest rate, but I can't remember what that is.

[frawin]

We have some good friends that live at Greensburg, Paul and Barbara (Schouten) Dean. We were able to get ahold of Paul's brother today, Paul and Barbara are not injured but did lose everything.

[Flintauqua]

Most media I've seen is saying EF-4 on the Greensburg tornado. 

E stands for Enhanced and F for Fujita, a meterologist who developed the scale in the 60's. 

The original scale was just called the Fujita scale and went from F-0 to F-5. 

The tornado that went through Newcastle, OK and into the southwest side of OKC a few years ago was off the scale, so the weather service adjusted the scale to account for the absolute monsters, thus what might have been an F-5 in years past, now may be called an EF-4.

Regardless, when a tornado of this magnitude goes through, you have to be below ground to even have a chance of survival.

[Janet Harrington]

Our own member, Sherri aka Sadie, is Teresa's sister.  Sherri works for the federal farm offices and her office was in Greensburg.  Her office is gone.  She and her husband, Curt, live in Mullinsville, which is west of Greensburg.

Sherri has a very good friend that lives in Greensburg.  This couple lost their home.  They will be staying with Curt and Sherri for the time being.  This is such a dreadful, dreadful tragedy for everyone in that community and their friends and families.  An entire town gone. 

Remember when the tornado hit Parsons a few years ago.  That tornado took out a town called Franklin.  Wiped the entire town off the face of the earth.

Please pray for these people as they try to put their lives back together.  Please pray for the emergency workers, rescue workers, and all involved as this tragedy also affects their lives.

[Roma Jean Turner]

I know I have been through there on my back and forth to Colorado when I was younger.  Is Greensburg the town that has the worlds largest well?  So very sad. I bet they will pull together
and put that town back together.

[W. Gray]

There is a qualifier.

It is home of the world's largest hand dug well.

[Teresa]

Talked to my sis a while ago.
Their friends, Danna and Pat are living with them and probably will have to for for quite a long time.
They were in the basement, but the upper levels caved in. Pat threw himself on top of his wife Donna and they both crawled to the little room that she had her Christmas stuff in. After it passed, they had to knock a hole into the outside and yelled and neighbors came and dug them out. They were very very lucky to not have been hurt.
But they lost almost everything. Their old dog got blown3 blocks away .. 3 pastures away and was found today.. alive! Sherri said that they took chainsaws and they sawed their way into the wall of the house to get kind of where they could dig through some rubble. She found a picture of their boys when they were little and a trophy of one of the boys and a few dishes. They got a few of the clothes that were strewn around.. They managed to dig around where  the bathroom area was and actually found some of their medicines. But that is about it for now. They had an 8:00 curfew on the town. No one was able to get on or go through after that.
They will go tomorrow and try to dig through more. Pat has no idea where his truck is. It is totally gone.
Sherri's said they are going to try to set up the work office in Kiowa county, but nothing is planned for sure. They are all just pretty shell shocked...