Tornado Alley

Since yesterday morning, it has been hard to watch the cable news or the Weather Channel without seeing footage and commentary about the Greensburg, Kansas tornado. We were staying at a hotel preparing for our son's college graduation, as my Mom and Dad joined us for breakfast. Their first words were, "Did you hear about Greensburg?"

This was not the first tornado "experience" I have had, but the amount of devastation is hard to get my arms around. I was living in Emporia, Kansas in 1974 when a killer tornado struck, destroying a shopping mall, a large trailer court and a wide area of upper-middle-class apartments and residences. There were 12 fatalities. It was eerie. The description of Greensburg as "looking like a war zone" was used then, as well. I'm not sure they were using the rating scale on tornados that they are using today. I don't believe Emporia's tornado was an F5 like the one that took out Greensburg.

Years later, when we were living in Bloomington, Indiana -- a tornado struck on the the south side of Bedford, about twenty miles south with similar types of damage, only a much smaller area. The reason I write this is: I grew up very near Greensburg. I have been there and driven through there countless times in my growing up years. It is all very familiar to me -- and to watch from afar -- it is even more gripping for the memories of the town I knew, but is now nothing but rubble.

Finally (but one never knows), we have had a several tornados near our home in Junction City, Louisiana in the last few years. One came as near as half-a-mile and thankfully we had no damage though others a few miles down that tornado's track had localized but massive destruction, like the Greensburg photos.

Our prayers are with the people of Greensburg.

Addendum: My dad forwarded a news article that stated that the Greensburg tornado originated near my old hometown of Protection, Kansas -- accounting for the 20-30 minute warning that the residents of Greensburg had. Here is a link to a stormchaser site that covered another multi-tornado outbreak near Protection on April 23.