KSU damage estimate: $20 million

[sigma7]

...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.

Comments

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Cardwell Hall gallery, plus some surrounding buildings, including the nuclear reactor.

[alstaria.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that you and yours are ok and that the tornado that hit KSU wasn't worse than it was. Thank you for posting that skycam video; that was both frightening and fascinating as hell.

[missmiah.livejournal.com]

FYI - talked to the Perky's. They're both fine.

[wenchamok.livejournal.com]

Glad you're all right!

[patchsassy.livejournal.com]

From what I've seen (there's already gobs of pictures going up on Facebook), the main damage is uprooted trees, roof damage and windows. I didn't really see any pictures of structural damage, which leads me to believe that they built us a good college.

Are there any estimates yet of what EF it was?

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, say what you will about fugly late 1960s concrete rectangle building style, they're sturdy.

[patchsassy.livejournal.com]

I actually love the style of buildings at K-State. The campus is one of the things I miss most about Manhattan.

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Cardwell does not really live up to the rest of campus's architectural motif, though.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

It was relatively small -- from the damage and the debris trail I'd say EF2, maybe EF3. It was nowhere near the monster that took out Chapman, which I'd put at a solid EF4.

And well, yeah, most of the buildings on campus are dense enough to survive something like this -- Weber had the arena which left it vulnerable, and the poor Soil Erosion Lab didn't stand a chance.

But yeah, this has not been a good seven months to be a tree in Manhattan.

[patchsassy.livejournal.com]

Yeah...exactly how many trees are going to be left when it's all said and done? I did see that the pretty white trees (I used to think they were birch but my mom said they were something else...I can't remember what though) by King Hall survived but I mean. Seriously. The trees first get completely stripped by ice and now get uprooted. And you know some of them have been there for decades.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Not to mention they're putting in a circle drive between the chapel and Fairchild for McCain. So they've been tearing up all *those* trees for about two weeks now. If only they'd waited.