On June 11, a tornado formed west of us about 70 or 80 miles. We watched its progress as it tracked through Chapman, KS (1 death and about 70% of the town destroyed) and continued on towards Manhattan. While the ranch is located SE of Manhattan making us in the clear, my folks have a place in town just to the NE of the KSU campus. As the meteorologists tracked the storm first through SW Manhattan and then onto campus, we became increasingly concerned. While my mother was out of town in Michigan, my father was at home. After a call to ascertain he was in fact in his basement, we waited, watched the radar and listened to the radio. We called Dad when we were pretty sure the storm had passed and were relieved to hear that while he was out of power, things seemed to be OK.
The next morning told a different story, although not one nearly as bad as the story of Chapman, parts of Manhattan and places onto the east. Dad got about as lucky as you can get. While several big, old trees were down, including Mom's 40' blue spruce (sorry Mom!), the house was amazingly unscathed. Trees fell away from the house while debris from campus, including metal pieces from Weber Arena (Animal Sciences dept.) were in the trees and literally inches from the house but caused no real damage. The bed of Dad's truck took a pretty good hit, but it was the bed only; the cab was untouched. Go figure. We found several photos from who knows where and a business card from an auto dealership about 7 or 8 miles away. A little damp but perfectly readable.
For family and friends, I've posted some photos I took before we commenced the clean up. Click any photo to enlarge it.
