A tornado that tore apart a town near Wichita, Cannes, caused significant damage on Friday night, tearing apart houses and power lines, uprooting trees and erecting cars on buildings. There are no reports of deaths.
Earlier reports said the number of damaged structures in the city, Andover, ranged from 50 to 100, but additional on-site reports by emergency teams on Saturday revealed that up to 1,000 structures may have been damaged as staff continued to to carry out inspections to determine the full impact.
The road to the damage stretched about four miles north of where authorities thought it ended on Friday night, Mike Roosevelt, deputy chief of the Andover Fire and Rescue Service, told a news conference Saturday afternoon. He added that the number of damaged structures is likely to “continue to grow throughout the day”.
Numerous photos posted on social media show that homes have been compared and cars have been turned upside down on lawns.
Emergency officials said only a few people were injured and most were light, although a firefighter was taken to a district hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Chad Russell, chief of Andover Fire and Rescue’s fire department, told an earlier news conference on KAKE in Wichita that “quite a few” people had to be rescued late Friday night, but no one needed a rescue from Saturday. in the morning. In some neighborhoods, he added, “houses were completely blown up.”
Residents received warnings from the National Weather Service eight minutes before the tornado struck. Their quick response to the warnings prevented more serious injuries and deaths, said Chance Hayes, a meteorologist with the service. “They took shelter in homes, sheltered in businesses, sought shelter wherever they could to escape danger,” he said.
31-year-old Jalin Mitchler was trying to persuade her 5-year-old daughter to train for a dance recital over the weekend when the warning sirens sounded. A few minutes later, she said, a friend called to tell her that a tornado was coming. Her friend sent her a video showing a dark, swirling cloud that looked just behind Mrs. Mitchler’s house.
“She said, ‘Get your girls in the basement now,'” Ms. Mitchler said. “I knew in that tone of voice that she must be close to the house. We get tornado threats all the time and you usually just go down to the basement, but it was completely different. That was real. “
Mrs. Mitchler escaped the storm with her husband and two daughters in the basement bathroom. They showed up to find their home intact, but Ms. Mitchler learned that Prairie Creek Elementary School, where she works as a special education teacher, had been hit. Windows and parts of the roof exploded there, according to residents. School officials assessed the damage on Saturday.
Rene Thompson Cunningham, 51, spent Friday night with her husband and two sons sitting in the driveway watching the rising storm. But what the family considered a routine spring rain became eerie when Ms. Cunningham’s 14-year-old son pointed to a “huge dark cloud,” she said.
“He was pointing to the cloud and we were watching it start to spin, and then it just turned into this full tornado,” Ms. Cunningham said. “I have never seen anything like it in my life. You could see the wreckage flying out of the field behind our unit. It just got bigger and bigger. “
She said that while her family was lucky and her house remained intact, a friend lost his entire home. “They hid under the stairs and were trapped,” Ms Cunningham said. “But some people heard them crying for help and drove them away.
The tornado that struck Andover was one of several that landed in Kansas and Nebraska. Tornado damage elsewhere in those states is less severe, according to the weather service. A hailstone up to four inches in diameter was reported in a rural area of South Nebraska.
The tornado came just days after the 31st anniversary of a severe tornado that struck Andover in 1991, killing 17 people, 13 of whom were in the mobile home park.
Heavy thunderstorms are expected in parts of the plains, Midwest and South this weekend. There may be strong thunderstorms in northeastern New Mexico and West Texas on Sunday, leading to an increased risk of fire in parts of Texas Panhandall.
Brandon Whipple, the mayor of Wichita, said on Saturday that an emergency response had begun in the city, including a shelter that had opened in a church. He urged people to stay out of the streets to make way for emergency vehicles. “PLEASE be safe, follow the warnings and have a plan of action in case another tornado falls,” he wrote on Twitter.
The tornado in Andover, a city of nearly 15,000 people, was part of an intense storm that damaged houses, trees and power lines in several Kansas counties, government officials said.
In addition to hit Butler County, which includes Andover, the tornado struck part of Sedgwick County, west of Butler, although only minor injuries were reported, according to Sedgwick County officials.
Andover Police Department has advised followers of its Facebook page not to travel in the city. Police also confirmed that many roads leading to the city – some littered with rubble and damaged power lines – have been closed to properly assess the extent of the damage.
Winds of up to 45 miles per hour are expected to continue in the Wichita area on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service, creating potentially dangerous conditions for emergency crews. Potentially strong thunderstorms are also expected on Monday.
As officials assessed the damage, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly declared a state of emergency Friday night.
“We have learned from past experience that we can’t wait for the storm to hit before we react,” she said in a statement. “By taking these steps early, we are able to respond more quickly when counties ask for help.
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