More Personal Memories of the Great Topeka Tornado of 1966

I recalled the basic story here, but there are other memories too.

The evening after, I and some friends decided to walk to a buddy's house that was in the badly hit area of town. As we walked across the university campus, where we were all students, we were devastated! Several of the older stone buildings were gone. The ROTC building, a relic of the Second World War, had disappeared. The university observatory had a refracting telescope that had been made for the Columbian Exposition in 1892. It was found several miles east of town, days later. Every tree on campus was gone.

I left Topeka in 1969. Almost 40 years later our youngest daughter was honoured as a Governor's Scholar, with the ceremony in the auditorium of the university. As the Cuter & Shorter Half and I drove cross campus, I remarked on all the trees. She pointed out that it had been almost four decades since the devastation!

But, that night as we approached the main area of destruction, we saw houses destroyed, trees uprooted, power lines down! It looked like what we imagined a European city looked like after being bombed in WWII. The National Guard had been called out to deter looting, and as we reached the edge of the major devastated area, we were stopped and vetted . Satisfied with our reasons for being there, we were instructed to keep upright, with our hands visible at all times. One Guardsman said, 'If you drop your wallet, I don't care if there's a hundred dollar bill in it. Don't bend down to pick it up!'

A bit further in, there was a Red Cross coffee wagon. We stopped for a cup, and they were kind enough to give us Red Cross brassards for our arms.

When we arrived at our friend's house we were relieved to see that it was still standing with only minor damage. However, there was an example of the weird power of nature! A splinter of wood, about 12 inches long, probably from a framing timber in a destroyed house, had been driven completely through the plaster and lath exterior wall! If one tried to do that, the splinter would shatter before piercing the wall.

The house next door was gone. But there was yet another example of the weirdness of tornadoes. It was a split level ranch house. The kitchen was on the lower level. The entire house had blown away leaving only the refrigerator. The cord had gone with the house, but the refrigerator had not moved! You could see that it sat squarely in the inevitable rectangle of grime that even the most fastidious housekeeper can't avoid.

One other memory that stands out concerns the Historical Society building. In the roof were skylights with reinforced 'chicken wire' glass. These had been broken in the storm . The most effective way of disposing of them was to simply drop them over the side and then scoop up the fragments. The safest place to drop the heavy sheets of glass was onto our reserved parking places. Having made sure that all employees had moved their cars, there was one left.

We were pretty sure we knew where the driver was. There was a bar across the alleyway called the Sasnak (Kansas spelt backwards). I went cross the alley to the bar and had the bartender announce that whoever was parked in the Society's reserved parking had better move his car. After waiting a decent interval, the car was still there, so we demolished it, dropping 30-40 pound sheets of reinforced glass down from the third storey roof.

The bartender told me later that the fellow had tried to collect insurance for 'storm damage'. His ploy didn't work. Since he had been illegally parked and the damage was obviously not from the storm, the beer he drank instead of moving his car turned out to be very expensive!