My Support Forums - View Single Post

eskielover · Oct 18, 2011, 03:18 PM

Remembering the 1966 tornado that came through Topeka.http://www.crh.noaa.gov/top/events/66tornado.php I arrived there the week after it happened to visit my grandparents for the summer. Couldn't believe the complete devistation of that large size city....from one end to the other. Indian folklore said that no tornadoes would come over Burnetts mound...kept the city safe....funny thing, God decided to get rid of that myth....the tornado, 1/2 mile wide came right over the TOP of Burnetts mound & went for 22 miles from one end of the city to the other where it lifted just after getting to the Kansas river. It was an F5 tornado. All I remember seeing were flattened houses everywhere we drove. Houses picked off their foundations & basements & lifted into the back yard. Huge blanks driven through upstairs windows. I remember, my grandfather worked for the Santa Fe railroad as one of their freight auditors. The office was right in town across from the state capitol. I remember looking out the window of his office & there was tar paper driven right around a window that couldn't be opened. He had papers in his desk that were drawn out of the desk drawer & sucked through the doorway transum, up the flight of stairs & was found the next story up from where he was working. My grandparents said that they had gone to their basement that evening for the weather watch & heard this huge roar outside....say this huge black force seemed to be coming right at the house & then it seemed to turn away & headed right across town, destroying many of the old stone buildings of Washburn University. They say even to this day that the financial damage caused by that tornado is grater than any other tornado to date....lucky that the loss of life wasn't great....think that 16 lost their life in that huge tornado.

I have to admit...I am very careless about the tornado warnings where I live now. I sit up in my upstairs bedroom even though I have a basement. Getting to the basement would be impossible even if I heard a tornado coming. The first tornado warning I got after moving here was in February.....no one has tornadoes in February!!!!!!! Tornadoes are interesting....but don't want to be in or close to one after seeing all the damage it can cause