Greensburg, KS
 

From the ground and from the sky, the destruction is unbelievable. :(

There's no town left.

saw that.. wow. I made some calls back home to see if anyone I knew nearby was affected... but no news about what's happening.. looks like alot of the cell towers out there got leveled too...

I had ignored it as just another tornado. How wide and how far was the path of destruction? And how did they get streets cleared so quickly?

I'll get back to you on that... other than that everyone knows Kansans are a tidy lot.

Looks like Dorothy really left Kansas this time.
An awful lot of lives will never be the same. I really feel for those people who's lives have been torn up.

3/4 mile wide F4.

Impressive. CNN has a video of the aftermath.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WEATHER/05/0...her/index.html

92 reported tornados yesterday, that's why it's easy to dismiss another tornado sighting. This is truly the exception that no one expects.
If Greensburg had a population in the tens of thousands instead of less than 2k, the death toll would be catastrophic. Of course that's no consolation to the people that lost friends and family. To them, it was catastrophic.

It's easy to say the people that walked away are lucky, they just lost stuff. But those people will spend the rest of their lives trying to put things back together... trying to return to normal. I wonder how many will move far, far away from Kansas?

Update; 1.7 miles wide, 205 mph winds and 30 minutes on the ground.

With 200+ mph winds nothing stays on the smooth roads; it all (cars, trees, buildings) ends up in piles in between.

What's the difference between earthquakes and tornadoes?



Ans: with earthquakes you get to keep the same address.

The amount of devastation is almost unimaginable. I keep seeing pics and video from Greensburg, and I'm just stunned.

Coming from a country that doesn't get tornadoes, this story is just unbelievable. The worst we ever get here are sea spouts and even they look pretty pissy beside something like this.

I hope the communities can pull together to help these people.

Looking at this picture of the clean up getting started in Greensburg, I can't help but wonder about the grain elevators. I know they are concrete and strong as hell, but the structures on top are no stronger than the houses on the ground. Why did they survive relatively unscathed?

it still blows my mind.. weird thing is that a friend of mines mother lives in greensburg... luckily she was out of town in kanarado visiting her grandchildren. just damn.... then again there's something to be said on the plains.. you pay for the view..

Ali, your country would get them if it had more continent-wide rainy weather fronts -- more moist air moving around, that is. It's big enough, and plenty warm enough. What's needed is the right temperature differential from near ground to up in the sky.