On Friday night, Lindsay Triplett and her family in Andover, Kansas, received emergency alarms on their cell phones. Minutes later, the roof of their house disappeared.
Mrs. Triplett and her family were safe. She had ducked under stairs in her family’s basement with her husband, four daughters, and the family’s Labrador Retriever. But when they emerged, their home was in ruins, in the wake of the devastation left by the tornado that hit the city directly.
“The house won’t be salvageable,” Mrs. Triplett said on Saturday. “I try to stay calm for the girls. But really, what do we do now?”
The tornado in Andover, a town of nearly 15,000 outside Wichita, has uprooted trees, lifted cars into buildings and ripped through homes and power lines. Authorities have not reported any fatalities directly resulting from the impact. But up to 1,000 buildings in Andover were affected by the tornado, officials said.
Three meteorology students died in a car accident in Oklahoma on Friday as they returned from Kansas, where they had been storm hunting.
Previous reports had estimated that 50 to 100 structures had been damaged, but the number rose after additional field reports from emergency services on Saturday. And the numbers were likely to rise again, Mike Roosevelt, deputy chief of Andover Fire and Rescue, said at a news conference Saturday.
Numerous photos posted to social media show houses lying flat and cars upside down on lawns.
Emergency response officials said only a few people suffered injuries, and most were minor, although a firefighter was taken to a hospital in the region with non-life-threatening injuries.
Chad Russell, Andover Fire and Rescue’s fire chief, said in an earlier press conference broadcast on Wichita television station KAKE that “a lot” of people needed to be rescued late Friday night, but no one had to be rescued as of Saturday. morning. In some neighborhoods, he added, “houses were completely blown up.”
Residents received warnings from the National Weather Service eight minutes before the tornado hit. Their prompt response to the warnings prevented more serious injuries and fatalities, said Chance Hayes, a meteorologist with the service. “They sheltered in houses, they sheltered in businesses, they sought shelter wherever they could to stay out of the way,” he said.
After Mrs. Triplett and her husband received the warning on their phones, she and her husband opened the front door to look at the sky and saw the funnel cloud approaching.
“I thought we had a little more time,” said Mrs. Triplett. “But we didn’t.”
Once in the basement, they could hear the impact of the tornado overhead. Ms Triplett said it was “like a plane taking off”. The pressure in their ears was strong. “And you could feel and hear a sound like a roaring wave. I think that was the roof that rocked.”
Her daughters screamed as the tornado swept over them, she said. When it became quiet, the family found that most of their roof had disappeared and two walls had collapsed in the dining and living rooms. The garage had collapsed on the family cars.
They spent the night at Mrs. Triplett’s mother’s house, a mile away. Early Saturday, Mrs. Triplett and her husband returned to the house, where they have lived since 2006, to try and save what they could. The rains that accompanied the tornado added to the losses, soaking the family’s belongings after the roof gave out.
Ann and David Taylor were at home eating dinner with their kids when they received the tornado warnings on their phones.
“Once I got the text, it didn’t even take five minutes to get in,” said Mrs. Taylor. “We reached our basement and reached the laundry room. I was talking about getting a mattress to cover our heads, but then I heard – it sounded like a train.’
They felt it hit the side of their house, she said. “We heard the cars driving around in our garage. We were afraid that the ceiling would fall on us.”
After the tornado passed, neighbors helped the family climb out of what was left of their home. Two cars in the garage had been crushed and the family’s minibus, they saw, was now in the neighbor’s front room.
“It is truly amazing that no one has died,” said Ms. Taylor.
The tornado that hit Andover was one of several to make landfall in Kansas and Nebraska. Damage from tornadoes elsewhere in those states was less severe, according to the Weather Service. Hail up to four inches in diameter was reported in a rural area in southern Nebraska.
The tornado came just a few days after the 31st anniversary of a severe tornado that struck Andover in 1991, killing 17 people, 13 of whom were in a mobile home park.
Severe thunderstorms are expected in parts of the Plains, Midwest and South this weekend. More than 7.5 million people were under a tornado watch Saturday afternoon. Areas of northeastern New Mexico and western Texas could experience severe thunderstorms on Sunday, leading to an increased fire risk due to possible lightning in parts of the Texas Panhandle.
Wichita mayor Brandon Whipple said on Saturday that emergency relief efforts had begun in Andover, including the opening of a shelter at a church. He called on people to stay off the streets to make way for emergency services. “Please stay safe, heed the warnings and have an action plan in place in case another tornado lands,” he wrote. on Twitter†
In addition to hitting Butler County, which includes Andover, the tornado struck part of Sedgwick County, west of Butler, although only minor injuries were reported. officials there said:†
Winds of up to 75 miles per hour would persist in the Wichita area on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service, potentially creating dangerous conditions for emergency services. Severe thunderstorms are also expected on Monday.
Aina J. Khan reporting contributed.
