Took out a bunch of neighbors houses and unfortunately my cousin in Chapman had his farm leveled, but no lives lost and they just got power back on.  Going out this afternoon to lend a hand to neighbors.  Smart phones and social media are amazing communication devices, I actually hauled a bunch of my ham radio equipment down into my safe room and was using my cell phone to keep everyone updated.  If building a house, a safe room or storm shelter really should be on your list of must haves.  Stay safe everyone.

Glad no lives were lost. Everything else can be replaced.

Would love to hear more stories when you good folks are ready.

No lives lost but about 20 houses damaged.  First time helping do cleanup on a tornado struck house.  It's interesting how it coated the outside and the inside with a layer of mud, it was like the house was brown from outside to inside by a layer of mud, dirty doesn't quite describe it.  Roof was taken off, and garage, all windows blown out.  My cousins house, after looking at pictures from facebook, everything was just gone.  No real clean up there, basement looked clean, not muddy.  Cousins said nothing to clean up because nothing to pick up.  All the farm trucks are missing, pickups, big grain trucks just everything gone.

When losing electricity, led lanterns are fantastic.  Started a generator this morning for our freezers, and moved refrigerator food into coolers.  Crews had our power back on by 11am, fantastic job on their end.

One trick I learned here is to keep frozen water bottles in the freezer. They keep the energy consumption lower once they freeze (don't freeze them all at once), and can be removed if you need more room, but if you have a power outage, you have a handy source of cold to keep your food from spoiling.



Glad everyone is okay.



 

Glad to hear everyone is safe. Take care brother.

Watched the thunderstorm from a safe distance of 30 miles to the south of you.  Has been the week for tornadoes in Kansas.  Tonight we are getting heavy rain - my ponds are finally full.  Hope the tornadoes stay out of the picture.

That tornado hit a couple miles north of me.

Lucky it wasn't worse.

If it had gone North a couple miles it would have gone through Chapman like in 2008...........

Half a mile is too close.  Glad you have a basement.

A thread was started in GD with some pics. It's cliche but I can't imagine going through that.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1872852_Chapman_KS_tornado_damage_pics_seen_on_FB.html

Chapman is a shit magnet. I recall following behind another one into that town back in 2009 I believe.
 

It was 2008 when we got hit last.......60% of the town

It may not be scientific, but in my experience tornadoes appear to follow similar paths.  This is the second time a tornado has just went north of my house last time was about 2 miles further north, but similar path.  Just happy to have a concrete safe room in basement.