AFTERMATH OF A KANSAS TWISTER

Supercell, Leoti, KS by @markokorosecnet

Auto, House, Apartments, Shopping Center, Emporia, KS

NO SUNNY KODACHROME DAY

I recently shared a Facebook photo by @markokorosecnet of one of those impressive Midwestern Supercell formations that had erupted over Leoti, Kansas.  Since my neighbor Becky replied that she saw a blog post in this, I felt compelled to respond.  As fate would have it, I was also still in the midst of sorting decades of material stuff that we’d accumulated including a trove of photographs.  I recently included some picture frames in a box of donations and was told that they really had no use for them, even at the bargain price of free.  Everyone these days has gone digital!  And believe me, I’m finding that digital images are a lot easier to store and access.  I hadn’t seen most of these images for years since they were stored in totes, but I can turn on my digital devices and immediately go to a year and month the images were taken.

And then I stumbled across what must have been a developed roll of Kodachrome film printed on Kodak paper.  Remember the old Paul Simon hit of the 70’s?

They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama, don't take my Kodachrome away.

If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they'd never match
My sweet imagination
And everything looks worse in black and white.

The photos were scenes of devastation that occurred in Emporia, Kansas on June 8, 1974 which I took the weekend after an F4 tornado touched down that was up to a half mile wide and tracked for nearly 38 miles.  This central Kansas town had been purposely located between the Neosho and Cottonwood rivers in the belief that a tornado never descended between two rivers.  The killer tornado dispelled that legend and forever validated that dog don’t hunt!

I texted the photos to my family in Emporia and got the following responses as we all recalled the traumatic event of 46 years ago.

The tornado dropped out of a violent storm front that spawned 36 tornados and 115 MPH straight line winds in Oklahoma and Kansas which killed six and injured 200 in Emporia alone.  It left little time for sirens when it touched down directly over a bakery plant, a shopping center, an apartment complex, a residential area and a trailer park that was leveled. 

My sister’s family was preparing a chili supper when my brother-in-law arrived home around 6:00 with my nephew, noticed the threating storm approaching and ordered everyone to the shelter of their basement!  They crowded under a pool table in the game room while he quickly peered out a basement window well which was soon blown out, followed by a stream of landscape bark.  The twister destroyed a neighboring house where the family had been celebrating a birthday.  Their home was leveled with only one thing left standing—their kitchen counter with cake, plates, and silverware untouched. 

The twister moved through the area quickly and the family emerged to survey the surrounding damage.  One house had been released from its foundation and returned at an angle so that you could see into their finished basement.  My niece had to stop near the house and pull a nail out of her foot.  A 2 x 4 was lodged into a utility pole.  A 4 x 8 sheet of plywood had sliced halfway through a living room wall and was protruding outside.  Any tree left standing was stripped of leaves and branches.  Cars in the shopping parking lot were scattered and a car by the apartments was literally crushed by a flying bathtub.  Fortunately, the stores had just closed.  My nephew and brother-in-law walked over to the damaged shopping center and nearby apartment complex where they heard people calling under the rubble. They dug a dazed man out who exclaimed that they needed to find his gun collection.  Police and firefighters arrived and ordered volunteers to clear the area as the smell of natural gas permeated the humid air.  They quickly rescued the man’s wife out from under a refrigerator.  My mother and younger brother knew the tornado had made landfall in the neighborhood and soon arrived before the area was blocked off.  After walking the neighborhood in a new pair of red Converse shoes, he returned to their relatively unscathed home, took off his soaked red shoes, and scared our mother who noticed his feet had turned into an intense bloody red!   

Later, a second round of air raid sirens pierced the summer twilight as the sky turned an ominous green, an uncommon but significant warning sign that an extremely tall thunderhead laden with moisture and hail is overhead.  When the setting sun lowers on the horizon, the light spectrum shifts from blue to red, yellow and orange.  This light penetrating a massive cloud of water droplets and ice particles results in a green sky.  I’ve only witnessed this phenomenon once as a kid growing up in Kansas.  The wind had stilled and the loss of electricity darkened the landscape.  No second tornado developed but the recovery had only begun and the memory had been seared forever.

During those fateful minutes, there were no bright colors as the day faded to black, no greens of summer except a menacing Supercell overhead and no sunny, Kodachrome day as the sun was obscured from everyone’s sight while the monster twister roared through the heartland.  And everything looks worse in black and white.