“Oh, there’s nothing that will come of this,” he muttered. Neil kept urging his dad to come to the basement, but Mr. Bartley stayed on the porch to watch the rain. An exasperated Neil finally gave up and joined his wife, Marsha; little Neil Jr.; his mother; and a group of neighbors in the safety of the basement below.
Bob and Pauline Johnson lived nearby in a large, white house on Buchanan Street, a few doors down from Central Park Elementary School. The couple originally hailed from Kentucky; Bob worked for the Hartford Insurance Company. He’d transferred from Chicago a few years before, and now he sold personal and commercial lines across northeast Kansas. Pauline had her hands full raising six kids. She was only 26.
The big family had finished dinner, and Pauline went upstairs to take a quick bath and get ready for a church meeting. But when she heard the siren on the roof of nearby Central Park Elementary crank up, she hurriedly dressed and came downstairs. Bob and the children were standing around the television, transfixed, as Bill Kurtis warned that a tornado was on the ground and heading for southwest Topeka.
“C’mon, kids. Let’s get to the basement,” Pauline said.
The rain was coming down so hard that the wipers on Pete Maxon’s ’52 Chevy coupe had no chance of keeping up. Maxon, who was 19, was tall and slim, with wavy black hair and black-rimmed glasses. He wore jeans, a T-shirt and tennis shoes. Maxon worked nights on the IBM mainframes at the First National Bank downtown. He’d slept all day, but this was his night off. He was heading over to see his girlfriend, Peggy, at her home near 14th and Polk streets. Peggy wanted to watch the new Charlie Brown special on TV. Maxon didn’t care about the show. But he was looking forward to spending some time with his girl. Since he’d slept all day, Maxon was not aware of the tornado watch. Nor did he hear the sirens. Finally, the rain eased up and rays of sunlight began to fracture the turbulent sky.
Neil Bartley was huddled in the basement of his parents’ airplane bungalow with his wife, son, mother and some neighbors when the thought hit him.
“Jesus Christ! The Whitneys!”
He dashed up the stairs and met his father coming down.
“By God, son, it’s coming! It’s coming!”
“I gotta get the Whitneys . . .”
Neil sprinted out into the backyard and raced next door to the tall frame house that sat on the northwest corner of 17th and Washburn Avenue. The Whitneys were in their 80s. Bartley had known them all his life. They were kind and friendly people. Mr. Whitney was a retired millwright and could fix just about anything. Neil had mowed the Whitneys’ lawn and helped them put up storm windows. He’d carried their groceries. Now he leapt up the steps to their side door and rattled the knob, but it was locked. He pounded and yelled: “Mr. and Mrs. Whitney! It’s Neil! There’s a tornado coming. You need to get to the basement!” But then, from the southwest, a hissing noise came that sounded like grain spilling onto a metal building. Neil looked back toward Washburn and saw debris circling in a low, black cloud. No more time. He ran for his parents’ house, made it inside and leapt down the stairs. He lost his footing and tumbled to the bottom. Quickly he regained his feet and grabbed a blanket as he raced to the corner, then crouched low and pulled the blanket over the group. In seconds, his two-year-old son was shrieking and the pressure and pain and din became so great that Neil never heard the house fly apart above him.
Tony Stein forgot about the street football game when the sirens went off. Now he was standing with his father in the shadows of the family’s dark stone cellar. The two peered out a small, high window to the west. There wasn’t much to see. A shrub partially blocked the view. The rain had stopped and the sun was coming out, although that strange, yellow cast still washed the sky. The air was dead calm. Tony’s mother, sister, two younger brothers and infant cousin sat in the basement’s southwest corner with a transistor radio. Newscaster Bill Kurtis was reporting that the tornado was moving into the city. A few minutes later, Tony noticed the leaves on the bush outside begin to flutter oddly, like a flock of captive butterflies. And then Tony’s dad, a towering, powerfully built man, shouted, “Here it comes!” What he saw or heard, Tony never knew, but the young man didn’t ask questions. He dashed for the southwest corner to join his siblings and mother. His father grabbed an old mattress and threw it over the group. Then Mr. Stein lay spread-eagled across the top to hold it down. Tony’s mother was praying. The younger children were crying. Beneath the mattress, Tony felt an enormous pressure building against his eardrums. What he heard next was an explosion, not a sustained roar but a singular, terrifying blast. To him, it sounded as if dozens of men armed with shotguns had surrounded the house and simultaneously discharged their weapons into every door, window and wall.
A few blocks away at the Johnson household, the big family had made their way to the basement and crowded under an old kitchen table. One of the children held on tightly to Kelly, the beloved family mutt. Bob Johnson went back upstairs and stepped outside. He was having a hard time getting his head around the fact that a very large tornado was moving into the city and apparently heading straight for his family and home. But he could see it now, just beyond Washburn, furious and dark. In the middle distance, trees that looked electric green in the strange light were corkscrewing in the wind, bending and twisting in outlandish, inconceivable ways. Johnson felt an earthquake-like rumble that seemed to roll through his very bones. He raced back to the basement.
“Get up under there as tightly as you can, kids! Cover your heads! The tornado is coming!”
A few moments later, his wife heard the roar. Then she heard the sound of wood being pried loose, nails squealing out, boards popping and snapping, glass shattering. It was as if a large wrecking crew was upstairs taking the house apart.
Amid the bedlam, Pauline noticed dust falling from the ceiling like snow.
This house is going to come down on top of us . . .
Mary and Roy Hatke, the couple who owned the art supply store downtown, abandoned the table with dinner half-eaten when the sirens wailed. Mary grabbed the transistor and they retreated to the tall basement of their old home near the park. Listening to WIBW radio, she heard Bill Kurtis warn, “For God’s sake, take cover!” He sounds scared, she thought. She was scared, too. A few minutes later, the couple heard a low, grinding rumble. It was a terrible, remorseless sound.
“Hold my hand, Mary,” Roy said.
Quickly the roar became overwhelming, all-pervasive, and the wind smashed into the house and shoved the couple to their knees, like the pressing hand of a giant.
Pete Maxon pulled up in his ’52 Chevy in front of his girlfriend’s two-story house on Polk Street. The sky was clearing and the sunlight glared brightly on the wet pavement. He dashed up the steps and rang the doorbell. But there was no answer. Then he heard the rumble. He rang the bell again and tried the knob, but the door was locked and the house was dark. Glancing over his shoulder to the west, Maxon could see pieces of roofing circling in the now-gray-black sky. The rumble was getting louder.
He knew what it was.
What do I do? Should I get in the car?
He soon thought better of that, though, knowing that a tornado could fling a car hundreds of feet. So he sprinted for the side of the house. The wind was rising and he could see all manner of material floating just to the west. Maxon ducked down along the south side of the house just as the wind kicked into overdrive. Tree limbs were crashing down all around and mud and sticks pelted him. The sound was omnidirectional, and Maxon was certain the tornado was nearly on top of him.
Oh, God, I’m going to be carried away . . . If it’s my time, Lord, please take care of me, but I really don’t want to die.
He gripped the edge of the siding tighter and lowered his head as the howling winds tried to yank him free. The sound was akin to lying beneath railroad tracks with a diesel locomotive pounding right over the top. Finally, the great roar began to subside, and Maxon stood up and peaked around the corner and watched as the churnin
g, gray-black wall moved toward downtown.
Several miles to the southeast, 26-year-old Patricia Galbraith stood on high ground in her front yard and watched the tornado chew through the city. The funnel was wide and black and brilliantly backlit by the slanting rays of the dying afternoon sun. Pieces of metal and glass suspended in the twister caught the light and the shards glittered like a thousand diamonds against the swirling, dark band.
Never had Galbraith beheld a more breathtaking sight.
It looks like an angry god . . .
“For God’s sake, Pat! You’ve got to come inside!” It was her husband, Jim. He stood near the house, gesturing wildly with one arm, holding their one-year-old daughter in the other, frantic with worry. The couple’s three other children already were in the basement. But Pat did not come. She could not. She was mesmerized by the tornado’s terrible majesty. It was as if the funnel was casting a spell that hypnotized all who dared look upon it. Fortunately, the twister continued on a path perpendicular to Galbraith and the danger subsided.
“There was something extremely seductive about it,” Galbraith said 40 years later. “If the tornado would have called my name, I would have gone to it.”
When the silence finally came, Tony Stein’s father pulled himself up and gently lifted the mattress. The family beneath looked around, bewildered and quiet but for the gasping, broken sobs of one of the children.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”
Tony stood up. Everyone checked for wounds. No one was hurt. A few minutes passed. They heard muffled voices outside.
“Everyone okay in there? Everyone all right?” Two men were moving by the window, bending down to peer inside.
“We’re fine,” Mr. Stein called back. “Thanks.” The family started up the cellar stairs. The door at the top had been ripped away. In the kitchen, china, cereal, canned goods, furniture and plaster lay scattered, smashed and broken. A wall was gone. The roof above and most of the second floor were gone. Mrs. Stein took a long, silent look at the devastation. Then she sank to her knees and sobbed.
Tony helped his mother up and soon she regained her composure. He stepped outside and looked up Byron Street. In both directions, every house was wrecked. Every one of the beautiful old trees was shattered or debarked, ripped white like bone. Every car was smashed. A giant limb had fallen in front of the house and crushed the passenger side of his father’s turquoise-and-white ’57 Chevy.
It was as if an atomic bomb had detonated high above Byron Street.
No one will be able to get to us. The destruction is too much.
Then, a small miracle: Pumpkin, the family’s rat terrier, trotted out from behind the house. She’d been in the garage, which had vanished. But somehow the little dog survived.
“We gotta get out of here,” Tony’s father said. “I’ll go to Aunt Judy and Uncle Bob’s and get a car and come back. You come with me, Tony.” There was no emotion in his voice. Mr. Stein checked on his wife. Then father and son started at a fast walk up the bombed-out street. Twilight was laying in as Tony turned to take a last look down Byron Street. The only light he could see was the interior dome in his father’s smashed ’57 Chevy, which had come on when the door sprung open after the tree limb fell. The little light glowed like a forlorn beacon amid the staggering panorama of ruin.
The Bartleys — Neil, his wife, his son and his parents — likewise emerged from their basement to find that the world had changed. The entire front of the airplane bungalow on 17th Street was wrecked and open. Neil’s brand-new ’66 Fairlane had been in the garage in back; now the garage walls were gone and the roof had dropped. His car and his father’s both were smashed down to the doors. Before the storm, Mrs. Bartley had been working on some kitchen cabinets and she’d taken off her wedding ring and set it on a nearby shelf. The shelf and wall were gone. But her ring lay glittering on the floor. In a daze, Neil’s dad, the gas company foreman, made his way into the front portion of the house. After work, he’d hung his overalls on the bedroom door. He’d just cashed his paycheck and his wallet was fat. Now the bedroom door and the walls and the overalls had disappeared. Somehow, though, the muddy bed had stayed put. And here was another miracle: Mr. Bartley got down on his knees and found his wallet beneath the bed, cash still in it.
Shouts came from next door. The large, three-story home owned by the Whitneys, the older couple Neil tried to warn, had imploded. Neighbors converged. Old Mr. Whitney was calling for help from somewhere in the jagged pile of rubble. Neil spotted him through shattered boards.
“Where’s Mrs. Whitney?” Neil asked.
“I don’t know. I think she was on the first floor.”
The rescuers heard moaning and began to dig toward the sound, casting aside bricks from the fallen chimney. Finally they reached the elderly woman. She was conscious, although dazed and bloody and covered with mud and plaster dust. Long minutes passed, and then an ambulance finally arrived. Mr. Whitney was pulled out, battered and cut but okay. He took Neil aside as his wife was being loaded onto a gurney.
“Didn’t Mrs. Whitney go to the basement?” Neil asked.
“She did. She was coming back up to get me,” Mr. Whitney replied. “I’ve been here a lot of years and been through a lot of these warnings, and nothing ever happens. But I guess it happened today.”
The old man’s white hair was covered with mud and bits of glass and he had flecks of blood on his face. His face tightened and he looked around.
“Listen, Neil, you got to do me a favor. Keep an eye on the place tonight, will ya? I’ve got $10,000 hidden in cans in the walls. It’s probably still in there somewhere.”
At the Johnson house, the noise and the shaking stopped instantaneously, like the abrupt end of an out-of-control carnival ride. The house didn’t come down on top of the big family, as Pauline had feared. Still, they wondered.
Is it safe? Should we go outside?
The family took stock. All were covered with dust. But there wasn’t a scratch on any of them. Bob and Pauline made their way up the stairs. The first floor suffered little damage. Dinner dishes were still on the table. But when they stepped outside and looked back and up, they could see that the attic, the roof and most of the second floor were gone. All along the block, houses were flattened. Nearby Central Park Elementary School looked as though it had been hit by dive bombers. People were coming out of their shelters and into the street now, stunned, drifting like ghosts amid the ruin. The sun didn’t know about tragedy and continued to shine brightly.
Roy and Mary Hatke emerged from the basement to find their beautiful old house — with its grand staircase and high ceilings, thick crown molding and wide front porch — twisted on its foundation and irrevocably askew. Walls and ceilings had cracked and dropped and the back was ripped open. The couple stepped into the yard. The next home to the south, a duplex, was mauled. A young family lived there: an airman from Forbes Air Force Base and his wife and two children. Roy called and called but got no response. Dread swept over Mary as Roy picked his way into the house to find the stairs to the basement. He tossed rubble aside and made his way down. Finally, amid the patchy sunlight filtering into the cellar, he saw the airman and his family. They were huddled in the corner in a tight human ball, eyes wide, paralyzed with fear. Roy helped them out of the house.
Pete Maxon, the young man who had ridden out the tornado alongside his girlfriend’s house, was immediately struck by the profound silence that enveloped him. It was as though the funnel had sucked every sound from the Earth. He looked around. The house beside him had lost its roof and many others to the north were destroyed. Every car on the street, save his, was smashed by fallen trees. He glanced down at the spot where he’d made his stand. A large nail had been driven into the siding like a dart, just above where his head had been. Then he heard voices as his girlfriend and her family emerged from the house. They were nearly inconsolable when they saw him standing there. He was battered and filthy but unhurt.
“Oh, we didn’t know, we didn’t know, we didn’t know . . .”
In the short mile between the Washburn campus and Topeka Boulevard, the north-south artery that served as the spine of the city, the tornado smashed, scraped, exploded or badly damaged more than 250 homes. The neighborhoods struck were among the oldest in Topeka and ranged from comfortable middle-class to working poor. Although the twister’s footprint had narrowed slightly since it leapt off Burnett’s Mound, the main damage path was still at least one-third of a mile wide and the peripheral damage from rocketing debris extended the destruction well beyond that.
Pete Maxon and his girlfriend and her parents started up Polk Street in search of survivors. They found an Air Force sergeant buried in the rubble a few doors down. His arm was broken. Maxon’s Chevy was the only car on the street still serviceable, so they helped the airman in to take him to the hospital at Forbes Air Force Base. As they prepared to leave, Maxon noticed something laying in the front yard. It was his baseball glove. It had been on the front seat of the Chevy when he’d pulled up moments before. Now here it was in the wet grass, 30 feet away. Yet the car’s windows weren’t broken. Nor had the doors been flung open during the storm, as far as he could tell. There was no evidence of it.
The tornado had strange and mighty powers.
Downtown
A – 10th St. & I-70 overpass
And Hell Followed With It: Life and Death in a Kansas Tornado Page 20
