Looking back at the '66 tornado
7:56 p.m. Tuesday, March 11, 2008
"I said 'for God's sake, take cover' and I probably looked so scared that people got the message," said former Topeka broadcaster Bill Kurtis.
"From the side it was very dark, it looked like midnight."
"So I ran upstairs and got the baby out of the bed, got blankets, pillows, put them in the corner and tucked everything around them," tornado survivor Dodie Longstaff said. "I told them to try to be good and quiet because something bad was going to happen. "
"We had four children so we had them with us and you couldn't see them as we were holding them. It was just total black," City engineer Bill McCarter said.
"I looked up and saw everything flying up in the air."
"It was a very huge tornado, very wide, very black, dark. I remember that was horrible for them. They were screaming real bad because the suction of the tornado was like pulling, like pulling on our ears."
"We knew it had passed over, so we went up to see what had happened above and of course, the home was just almost total damage, but then I watched the tornado as it moved on down towards the airport and from the backside it was a beautiful white column."
"I was not prepared for the destruction or the loss of life," Kurtis said.
"I just wouldn't want to go through it again, just listening to it..," tornado survivor Evelyn Bunge said.
Today, you can see that the city has grown back to its old self and then some. The trees are filling in and covering the scar that once ripped through the heart of the city.
Parks now line up along areas of the Shunganunga Creek, right where tornadic winds tore up everything in its path, all the way down to the dirt back in '66.
Washburn University bears no resemblance to the pre-tornado school and certainly a very different look now compared to the ruins that dotted the central Topeka landscape in the months following the F5 storm. The University was one of the hardest hit areas of the city, with damage extending from the campus northeastward right through downtown, narrowly missing a direct hit on the Statehouse.
Topeka tornado
- Family reason why tornado victim survived storm (June 8, 2006)
- Manhattan hit first by destructive ’66 tornado (June 8, 2006)
- City of Topeka prepared if disaster to strike again (June 8, 2006)
- Dealership owner beginning career when tornado struck (June 8, 2006)
- Former mayor recounts devastation after Topeka tornado (June 7, 2006)
- LJWorld.com: 40 years after tornado in Topeka, technology boosts forecasting ability (May 24, 2006)
- Washburn rebuilds from rubble (May 23, 2006)
- Tornado aftermath devastating (May 22, 2006)
- Survivors recall deadly twister of '66 (May 21, 2006)
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