...before the storm
after the storm... 
KANSAS TWISTER STORY MAKES THE NEW YORK TIMES"Friday night’s monster tornado, over a mile wide, was so efficient it looked as though a giant hammer had smashed Greensburg, population formerly 1,500. For perhaps 80 square blocks, old brick buildings and new frame ones were flattened into twisted piles of masonry and timbers. Attics tipped to the street, upstairs bathrooms were open to the sky, roofs were flush with the ground, and cars perched precariously on heaps of debris. The town on Sunday was a vast field of destruction. Every structure that had not been crushed had been opened to the street. Collapsed buildings immodestly displayed their girders and stuffing. Virtually every window, where window frames remained, had been shattered. (a very good proof it was an ef5, that and the way all the trees were twisted into braids at their break-off points...) Churches and gas stations could only vaguely be discerned, the high school’s roof and much of the rest of it was gone, a paint store displayed its wares to the heavens, and the groceries at the supermarket were illuminated by a jagged tear in the roof. In a muddy field, a mortuary’s open coffins lay tossed about, and large trucks lay upside down like giant beetles. Trees, festooned with insulation, were reduced to ugly brownish trunks, a shock against the delicate spring green of the surrounding fields. Old war photographs came to mind.
Since these killer tornadoes can't be named before-the-fact like a hurricane, they always take on the name of the town they crush. So this will forever be etched into our psyches and our history books as "The Greensburg Tornado of 07". This one will be marked as one that destroyed an entire town, simply leveled it in the most basic definition of the word. It is truly a wonder the death toll wasn't much higher, we can thank the new age weather forecasters for that.
.The Greensburg tornado of 07 was a stealthy killer, shrouded in rain and darkness. It leveled an entire town within its black cloak, then disappeared into the night as suddenly as it had appeared. It was an enormous weather monster, a certified EF5, one of THE most concentrated and destructive weather phenomenons on the face of the Earth.
.
This particular monster was especially terrifying to those who endured its wrath, living through that protracted moment of sheer destruction must surely have been surreal. ...a mile-wide, midnight maelstrom buried deeply in the coal-black heart of a torrential downpour, roaring into a powerless village, and devastating every structure.
.
In its wake, the shattered, scattered shreds of Greensburg settled back onto the rain-swollen ground, and desperate residents emerged like prairie-dogs, clawing out and up from their underground weather-arks, to stand shellshocked, staring agape, and in humble, human awe, at the terrible devastation all around them...
.
.
Each of them knew that enigmatic moment of both joy and grief, the undeniable miracle of survival, mixed with the dull realization of the total worldly loss; it always occurs in one long, silent span of time, just after a deadly disaster has passed into the night...
.
We are heading down there later to see if people can help in any way, and to get some photos and videos. But if these weather patterns hold, we'll have enough weather right here, this year we can get all the videos and photos we might want, close to home, (never too close, I hope .)
.
We're turning into storm chasers lately, I have anticipated that might happen. But this year the dry-line seems to be about 25 miles west of us, and that puts us just this side of all those storm"hooks" where twisters erupt.
.
That gives us a great vantage point from up on "The Hill" also known as Coronado Heights, a very unique rocky structure nearby that juts up out of the prairie.There is currently speculation that it marks the location of seasonal Native American trade camps that were the factual basis for Coronado's Legendary Seven Cities of Gold.
From atop this WPA structure at the crest of "The Hill," the entire broad, unpopulated plain to the west can be viewed for 20 miles. So we expect to get some of our first personal tornado video right there. Actually, I've already been in a tornado up there, I was trapped in a station wagon on the south side of The Heights, during a small (F1-) twister back in the 80's, so I can claim that distinction already...Shake, Rattle, and Roll!!! Something I can never forget.
.
Next time, we'll have a camera rolling! This WPA building would stand up to any big, big blow, probably even an f5, and there is also a small cave tucked away along the mountain-bike path, just below the ridge, we could sit through even a direct hit in relative safety at either place.
.So, keep in mind, this blog's daily format will change for a few weeks as this weather rolls over, my daily news blogs will be intermittent in the process. We may be gone a couple days at a time, I'll upload photos when we get back.
.The storm stills were taken from a video, I'll have some from the regular camera later...
No comments:
Post a Comment