Posted on 05/05/2007 12:04:35 AM PDT by silentknight
Damage being reported for over 100 miles. Reports of dozens of injuries and missing people. Damage to numerous towns from one large tornado or a series of large tornadoes. Tornado tracked from south of Greensburg, Kansas and is still going as of 2 a.m. this morning near Claffin, Kansas.
Reports of dozens of homes destroyed. Many people still trapped.
Red Cross is opening a number of shelters.
Ambulances being called in from over 100 miles away.
Reports of fatalities.
NWS reports the tornado was over one mile wide. Numerous reports of damage swaths of 1/2 mile to one mile wide.
My sister and I went to Greensburg today. I kept getting lost while she was driving around. I lived there from 1970 till 1995, and kept getting lost today! It looks like a wasteland. My sister drove up Main street from the south, and until we got to the high school, I didn’t even know what street we were on. I didn’t realize the damage to the Dillons was that severe. The pictures I’d seen of it didn’t show the worst of the damage.
It is hard to believe and hard to describe to those haven’t been there. If you came up from the south on Main, you passed the home of my brother, which had stood on the east side (facing west). This once was the 1200 block on South Main.
Sir, may ask where your father lived? Just curious.
Thanks for coming out. I do appreciate it. Also, I can understand perfectly why your dad isn’t sure if he is coming back to us or not.
He lived just south of the 5 way intersection on South Spruce. I grew up in the trailer court across the street from the Best Western, and didn’t even recognize what was left of it when we drove by it. Mostly overnight campers, but at one time there were a “whole” 5 trailers there. lol
I saw less damage than that after the Gulf war. It was eerie driving around and not recognizing anything for block after block, and suddenly realizing where you are. My friends moms’ house lost it’s roof and upper floor. That was two blocks East of the courthouse on Florida street.
I’m waiting to hear if they’ll be able to salvage any of the high school, or if they’re going to have to tear it all down and start fresh. It WAS 3 stories tall, and now the bottom floor is all that’s left, and the South part from the Auditorium on South is totally gone. It’s a blessing that the tornado didn’t hit during school hours, because the grade school just isn’t there anymore, and everyone in it would have died.
Happilly, many that are thick skinned can visit some over the following period and find that our site's political and media insight is useful.
The current issue about FR being given nasty gram from Democrat headquarters for a poster recounting what he heard on the radio about the Governor and Howard Dean is a good example.
I tend to believe the old joke. How can you tell when a politician is lying? “Their lips are moving” is the truth more often than not. That is the main reason I don’t particularly follow any political party. But, having said that, I don’t think an emergency like that is the proper place for political mudslinging, but then again, I didn’t take what she said as mudslinging. I can see how someone would take it as that though.
Sometimes this awkwardness is diagnosed by one side or the other of the exchange as motivated by causes that are not the case or attributes characteristics that seem plausible from their vantage point.
If that chance meeting awkwardness is overcome, great profit by association often results, both for the forum and for the individual.
One of my high school teachers had us do a quick exercise in speech class one year, he asked a question about a very charged topic (which I won’t reveal) and asked the students where we stood in our opinions, then made us research and argue the opposite view point. Everyone should go through that once in a while. Once you have your mind set on one opinion, try looking at it from the other side.
Dittos -- prayers going up.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.