News & Tech

After a deadly tornado ripped through Greensburg Kansas on Friday, a fresh wave of tornadoes ripped through the Plains late Saturday. At least nine people are known to be dead and scores more were injured, The Kansas City Star reported. Eight of the dead were killed in or near the town of Greensburg, a town of 1,800 70 miles west of Wichita in Kiowa County, while the ninth was a sheriff's deputy who was killed in nearby Stafford County.

Kansas Tornado Destruction: Greensburg StormChaser Video Shows Twister

Storm chasers were able to videotape the devastating twister as it touched down outside of town and ripped through fields along what appears to be a country road. The storm chasers can be heard screaming on the video as they dart around trying to get the incredible shots.

***

Kevin King surveyed the destruction from the Greensburg tornado on Saturday and was amazed. "The town was just razed," he said. "It's absolutely unbelievable. "I've never seen anything like this," said King, director of Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS). "It was so powerful. The brick walls of churches and homes, every brick was separated. It wasn't just walls that fell over together, bricks are just strewn about."

The tornado was estimated by some National Weather Service officials as an F4 or F5, with winds from 166 mph to more than 200 mph. The storm killed at least nine people and injured 60 others when it tore through the small rural town of about 1,600 located 110 miles west of Wichita, reports the Disaster news network.

***

The Kansas Adjutant General's Department said it had confirmed reports of eight tornadoes touching down, including one that injured 11 people when it struck a pair of restaurants in the central Kansas town of Osborne. In Greensburg, the twister destroyed the 911 center, the high school and elementary school and most of the commercial district -- and all utilities were shut down. Thirty patients had to be evacuated from a damaged hospital.

The National Weather Service said it had received reports “well into the double digits” of twisters touching down in six southwest Kansas counties. Numerous tornadoes were reported from South Dakota south into Oklahoma as forecasters scrambled to keep issuing warnings.
The new storms forced rescuers to abandon search efforts Saturday in southwest Kansas, where crews had spent the day hurrying through the wreckage from Friday night's giant tornado. That twister left little standing in Greensburg beyond the local pub.

StormChaser video is here.