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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,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.)
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.)
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I'm not sure where this little monster's going to fall on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, but anything shy of an EF3 will astonish me.
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The high school (which was built in 1889...I know this because my great-grandmother attended it on its first day) lost its roof. The Methodist church was also very badly damaged. There are several houses that are just vaporized. The downtown is also in really really bad shape.
Also, I heard on KMAN that an apartment complex on College Heights was damaged as well in Manhattan.
EDIT: Chapman from the Salina Journal
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I think I'm going to go try to take a nice big swig of codeine, take a bath and try to calm my frazzled nerves. I don't think anyone I work with here is going to understand exactly how freaked out I am.