Year: 2008

The short version:

• We grab a quick continental breakfast at the motel. Here’s a typical chaser breakfast (under the best of conditions):

  

  Often, there is even less than you see here (like no waffle). Enough said!

• Drove from Hays, KS to Greensburg,KS
• Shot photos of the still decimated town.

  Wow, what a mess! I admire these folk for trying to rebuild. We tour the local sightseeing stop, the largest hand-dug well in the U.S. (which only survivied the tornado because (a) it was already underground and (b) it was protected a little by the building that used to be around it. Then we shoot some photos around town.

  There’s not much left, even a year later:

  

  As we drive by houses, we still see the FEMA paint marks used to count the survivors, the injured, and those who wer etaken by the tornado. It is very sobering to be here.

  Here’s a shot from inside their former Pizza Hut. Note the twisted steel beams:

  

  Only a few yards awa, the drink cups are still in their dispensers (silver tubes, just right of center) on the wall:

  

  Greensburg will survive and re-build, propped up by Kansas stubbornness — yes, that’s a . compliment! — and a defiant ‘N0, WE WON’T GO!” attitude, best reflected by this sign:

  

  (Dan seems to approve of the sign as much as I do!)

• Ate lunch at the Sonic in Pratt:. The locals scarcely take notice of the chase van, having seen so many in the last month:

  

• Wandered around, finally returning to Greensburg,KS. Chaser convergence with Roger Hill and Silver Lining Tours ( a 5-vehicle caravan). After saying hello to Roger and the gang, Scot checks the RUC model, surface observations, and radar via our broadband connection:

  

• Chased south of Greensburg, through Greensburg, through to areas SW of Wichita. Caught up with Tempest Tours south of Pratt.
• Here we see Alex enjoying a moment of quiet reflection:

  

• Lodged at Days Inn & Suites in Wichita.

NOTE: My other photos for this day are at http://www.underthethunder.org/image/photo/2008/20080526/

I’m really tired from all the driving (due to a short night for sleep… about 5 hours altogether), so here’s the bullet list version of our day:

• We met around 10 a.m., generally considered ‘sleeping in’ for a chase day.
• We chose the central Kansas moderate risk area as our target, leaving Iowa behind. (Ironically, there was a large tornado near Waterloo, IA, only 1.5 hours from Coralville, where we started the day. C’est la vie!)
• We struggled with getting a dedicated circuit for Scott’s inverter (thus for his laptop), making repeated adjustments to the power arrangement as we charged down I-80, I-35, I-70, and various connecting roads.  Nothing but a dedicated cigarette outlet seems to work out! I’m really frustrated we haven’t found a smaller inverter, an iGo adapter for the D600, or any better soluton for powering the laptop than we have.
• The sun finally came out around Des Moines (exactly as Scott called it!)
• About 2/3 of the way through our 600+ mile drive, we met up with the storms.
• We saw penny-, dime-, and nickel-sized hail around Ellsworth, KS
• We got a good lightning show
• We got huge amounts of rain
• Once the storms moved on, we got a weird ‘mixed sky’ sunset: a partial red ball of a sun, dark purple to the north and east, isolated streaks of blue sky to the west, and broken, washed-out looking clouds to the south. If I were chasing solo, I’d have stopped to take a picture of this schzophrenic sky.

We ended up in the southern moderate risk area (like many folks hoping for a better tomorrow), but missed what little happened here, due to our late arrival.  The big picture of storm activity looked like this:

20080525 Storm Reports