TWO STORMS, TWO DAYS

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Jun 13, 2008 by Barbara Hollingsworth

By Barbara Hollingsworth

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

For nearly a week, forecasters had warned on and off of the potential for serious storms.

Late Wednesday, their forecasts turned real. Tornado sirens began to blare. In the aftermath, two people were found dead.

The tornadoes cut a path of havoc across northeast and north- central Kansas. The worst and most widespread destruction was in the Dickinson County town of Chapman, as well as in Manhattan.

Storms repeatedly sprouted around Barton County near Great Bend and ripped northeast, dropping tornadoes, reducing homes to splinters and hurling hail large enough to kill cows. In Chapman, a tornado measuring a half-mile wide destroyed most homes and claimed the town's gathering places, from its schools to its churches. A short time later, the storm roared into Manhattan, causing an estimated $20 million in damage to the campus of Kansas State University.

Even as another storm brewed Thursday, residents, friends, family members and authorities began the arduous task of rebuilding. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said all of the areas hit during Wednesday's storms will be added to the May 28 state declaration of emergency.

"Kansans are amazing," the governor said during a stopover in Manhattan. "They're resilient."

A deadly brew of volatile weather had drawn the interest of meteorologists for days.

It struck first Wednesday evening in Barton County. Hail - golf ball-size and larger - broke out windows and killed cows as the storm roared through Ellsworth County, said Rick Harper, a dispatcher for the Ellsworth County Sheriff's Office.

In Saline County, officials had been waiting for the worst of the storms and had storm sirens wailing for an hour and a half.

"We knew the nasty stuff was coming," said Dean Speaks, deputy director of emergency management in Saline County.

When the final storm cell moved through, it dropped what would be an EF-3 tornado near the town of Smolan, just southwest of Salina. From the air Thursday, Speaks saw that the tornado had cut a 15- mile path through the county, growing as wide as a half mile but mostly steering clear of highly populated areas.

About 10:20 p.m., a storm spotter reported a quarter-mile-wide tornado roaring into Chapman. The EF-3 twister left one woman dead and destroyed much of the town of 1,300 people between Abilene and Junction City.

Dickinson County Commissioner Joe Nold traveled to storm-ravaged Chapman early Thursday. In the dark, he could just begin to see the devastation and attempted to wade through the debris.

"I tried to get to a friend's house six blocks off the main street," he recalled by phone Thursday. "I picked my way through two blocks. That was as far as I could get."

The American Red Cross reported 75 percent of Chapman homes were destroyed or suffered major damage. Nearly 70 homes were destroyed, and 215 sustained minor to major damage.

In addition, the district's public schools, including those in which some had taken shelter, were destroyed.

Tony Frieze, superintendent in Chapman Unified School District 473, peered at the open sky through his roofless office Thursday morning as he called Kansas education commissioner Alexa Posny.

"We've seen the pictures," she said. "It's heartbreak."

The only space that might be salvageable, she said, appeared to be the high school library. Otherwise, books, papers and records are mostly gone. The department, she said, will do what it can to relieve pressures.

In the meantime, she said Frieze must rethink what would have been the first alternative space for educating students. The town's churches are gone, too.

"It's so overwhelming you don't even know where to begin," Posny said of their talk.

Immediately after the storm, Nold said he watched as emergency workers from across the state swept into town. The Kansas National Guard was deployed to assist with security and supply a generator to run the water supply. The Kansas Department of Transportation worked to remove downed trees and power lines.

"All the training that's been going on since 9/11 is really paying dividends in this kind of emergency in my opinion," Nold said.

With no building left for a shelter in Chapman, the American Red Cross opened a shelter in nearby Abilene. Victoria Degand, executive director of the North Central Kansas Chapter of the American Red Cross, said she expected an increasing number of residents to move to the shelter at Sterl Hall with power expected to remain out in the town for as much as a week and a half. Phone lines are down, too.

The Red Cross began by helping the families with the basics - food and clothing. Eventually, they will look at greater needs.

"This is going to be an ongoing process for quite some time," she said. "Who knows what will happen over there as far as how they'll rebuild."

Manhattan was hit about a half hour after the storm slammed Chapman.

At K-State, its engineering complex, as well as Waters, Call, Cardwell and Ward halls, suffered significant damage, and Weber Hall was severely damaged, according to the university. Ward Hall houses the university's nuclear reactor, but authorities said the building's design kept the reactor safe.