City of Topeka prepared if disaster to strike again
6:07 p.m. Thursday, June 8, 2006
During the Topeka tornado of 1966, Gene Krase was serving in the Kansas National Guard at Fort Riley.
“I was at Fort Riley in the training area and when the front came through, the cloud rotation actually came over the valley that we had the young soldiers take cover in,” Krase said.
Nobody in Krase's unit was injured and he was not directly involved with the response or cleanup effort.
But if a tornado were to strike the city today, he would be on the front lines.
Topeka tornado
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The emergency alert system is in the operations center of Kansas Emergency Management.
“We go into the watch phase and we turn on all our systems here and we begin to more actively monitor it,” he said.
After the disaster, they would check in with local agencies, like city public works.
Over at Topeka Public Works, they are prepared for a natural disaster. They've already run mock disaster training.
“About two years ago we actually did a table top exercise in public works,” said David Bevens, Topeka Public Works.
Those trial runs helped the city to improve their weak spots.
The City Fire Marshall said preparations for natural disasters like tornados should begin at home with an emergency kit and family plan of action.
“We were able to pinpoint areas that needed additional attention,” Bevens said.
But if a local agency is overwhelmed, the state is ready to step in with high tech equipment and well-trained employees.
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