This blows

My city is bleeding tonight.

Nine times out of ten when the sirens wail I call up the local TV stations to get a good view of the Doppler radar, see where exactly the cell's forming, where it's really going. And I can usually tell when it's going to swing north or south or just dissipate. (I used to want to be a meteorologist; I bet you didn't know that.)

Tonight it was clear when it was still half an hour away that we were in trouble. But the sirens gave everyone plenty of time -- we knew it was coming.

The tornado ran from southwest to northeast parts of town. There's a whole bunch of houses without roofs, gutted, heavily damaged or just disintegrated. The new hardware store on the west side of town was leveled. It touched down just on this side of campus, blew out windows in the engineering building, Fiedler and Durland Halls. Radio's saying that there have been whole trees uprooted, now scattered in the street along with a handful of stop signs. A soil study lab got removed and replanted in the middle of a parking lot. Cardwell, Burt and Ward Halls (not "Burt Ward Hall," sadly) have all been damaged and the vice-provost issued a press release say to stay the hell away from campus; it's been sealed off.

The south side of town has gone dark, along with much of this area. Not here. If I'd just gone to sleep at 9 pm, like I intended, I never would've noticed a thing. I feel a little guilty.

We're not going to know until the morning how dire the entire situation is, but the reports coming in are painting a much grimmer figure as they unfurl.

Manhattan had a collective feeling of security -- we hadn't had a tornado here in town in my recollection, though some have come close. We're in one of the more topographically energetic parts of the Flint Hills, not landscape you'd expect in Kansas, and that got a lot of credit for not having a tornado here. That also got leveled tonight.

Some injuries reported. Everything's still sketchy at this point. Still have a few people to track down, but everything's fine on this end. Completely freaked out and going into tachycardia, but intact. Tonight, that's more than enough.

Moar: The Sigma Alpha Epsilon house -- just about across the street from Durland/Fiedler -- has been unroofed.

Here's a rough-n-dirty map of the three confirmed touchdown points.

Shelters up at Portoff Hall at Cico Park. Another shelter at Putnam Hall on campus. Weber Hall suffered serious damage. Moore Hall also damaged. Chapman got hit pretty hard, but not much news from there yet. Okay, patchsassy says the high school lost its roof. Pictures from Chapman, Manhattan.

I'm going to go lay down now. (Oh, Pat Bosco says orientation/enrollment will go on as scheduled tomorrow...er, this morning. Mutter.)

The morning after: anybody need pre-moistened insulation?

Classes canceled, campus still locked down. Ideally it would've been nice to know that before driving to campus. There's saturated squares of yellow insulation everywhere in town now. I'm guessing it's remnants of Waters True Value on Amherst.

Update from the AP: Riley County Police Lt. Kurt Moldrup said Thursday that several Manhattan businesses are damaged or destroyed and 30 homes are leveled. He credits warning sirens before the storms hit Wednesday night for a minimum of minor injuries.... The university said the Wind Erosion Laboratory is destroyed, and the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house is heavily damaged. All residents are safe.

It's that last sentence which is the fantastic part of all of this. The sirens went off what seemed like a half hour before the tornado hit. Unfortunately, one person died in Chapman -- which got hammered -- and another person died in Jackson County.

The Manhattan tornado just skipped over most of town. If it'd stayed on the ground, the town would've been cut in half. So lucky, so damned lucky this time. Chapman lost 60 houses -- dude, I didn't know there were 60 houses in Chapman -- with about that many damaged. It's in dire shape. It hasn't been Greensburg-style flattened, but it's in horrible shape right now.

Doing fine here. Still got power. Birds okay, if confused. Me...overwhelmed. Still quite surreal. Repressing urge to go sight-seeing. Must man the blog.

Edit: And erica_roo's okay, so that's a deep sigh of relief.

KSU damage estimate: $20 million

...Dr. Jon Wefald's guesstimating the final damage figure to be in the $20 million ballpark. (Wait. Firefox has "guesstimating" in its dictionary? Cool.) Many people walking across campus -- half of them picking up trash (and there's a lot of it) and the other half taking pictures of uprooted trees and general damage (and there's a lot of that, too). VIPs are en route, too.

If anybody wants to blame one person for the storm, try this guy. Transplanted from Greensburg, he moves to Manhattan -- College Heights, to be exact. Sorry, dude.

The tornado that hit Chapman was huge -- some are saying perhaps half a mile wide. What hit Manhattan was tiny in comparison. Wefald said something along the lines of "If it had been an F3 or F4, there may not be a Kansas State."

Edit: Watch the tornado approach the skycam atop a K-State dorm. I'd been watching that camera rather intently earlier in the night. I guess it's in a better place now. Like Missouri. Danke to rewil.

E2: Via dvandom, pics of Cardwell Hall. The Manhattan Mercury's website is even sadder than usual today (actually, I kinda like the minimalism) and they've got moar pics.

E3: Aerial footage from Manhattan, Chapman. The more news that comes out of Chapman, the worse it sounds. They're now saying 75-85% of the town is severely damaged.

Moar twisterspam

Photo galleries of damage in Chapman and Soldier. Information on damage in Manhattan:

...Miller Ranch area: We can now see that our preliminary statement of 30 homes being leveled to the foundation wasn't correct. We estimate there were 15 homes that were "leveled." Numerous homes in the fairly new residential area received major/serious damage.

Amherst residential area: About 30 homes received major/serious damage, while several others received some sort of damage.

Amherst business area: The following businesses received catastrophic damage: Little Apple Honda/Toyota dealership, Waters True Value Hardware store, Amherst Self Storage and Southwestern Bell....

Dude, I used to live in Amherst Self Storage. (Also, clan all accounted for, all are well. It was a bad night, but today's going to be a good day.)