Topeka's F5 Tornado of 1966

The recent Kansas tornados and all the pictures of devastation brought back memories for me of when my family lived in Kansas back in the 60s.

I was 3 1/2 when the biggest tornado in Kansas history hit Topeka and went right through our neighborhood with winds of over 250 mph. The damage was the first in U.S. history to top $100 million. Sixteen people died and over 500 were injured. It stayed on the ground for 26 minutes, covered 22 miles and varied in width between 1/4 and 1/2 mile as it spun right through downtown.

I just have faint memories of the whole night and the days that followed ... hearing the tornado sirens, watching black skies, hiding in the tornado shelter until it was safe to come out, seeing mounds of debris everywhere as we drove through town the next morning.

The houses in our neighborhood had "tornado shelters" in the basements. They were thick concrete walled rooms designed to keep you safe during a tornado. We also knew to open windows before going there and locking our door ... so that the home's windows wouldn't all blow out from the pressure created by the tornado. I remember doing this "tornado drill" often because, at that time, Topeka was in tornado alley.

Our house is the in overhead photo at the top of today's blog ... about a third of the way down, near the right side of the photo. The tornado started at the top of that photo where the white, flat disk is seen and came across to where the flattened apartments are at the front of the photo. One of the first things I remember seeing on the next day, were those apartments. My mom, brother and I drove around them in our big 1960s boat-sized car and watched people as they were digging through the rubble.

I mentioned the tornado shelter at home ... but this night, I wasn't at home. It was Wednesday night and since my dad was the pastor of the Baptist church, we were at the church that night for Wednesday night supper and prayer meeting. The story goes that my dad heard the sirens for the tornado and said that we would adjourn the prayer meeting to go to the shelter ... but first he wanted to have a prayer. He bowed his head and started to pray. Out in the audience, one of the members interrupted him and said, "Preacher, I hate to interrupt ... but I think we need to get to the shelter right now!"

My sister was at home alone that night and was just putting a foot into the bath tub when she heard the tornado warning siren. (The siren was a truck that drove through town ... not the type of permanently mounted warning sirens that we have today.) She looked out the window to see this giant tornado and black, black sky ... she went right away (not stopping to dress) into our basement shelter.