Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Greensburg (Kansas) Tornado

It is sobering to see aerial photographs of the damage a EF-5 tornado did along with 205 mph winds in about 20 minutes last week. The full path of this tornado (which was on the ground far longer than 20 minutes) was reportedly almost 2 miles wide and 22 miles long. Tragically, as of this writing, ten people are known to have been killed by this tornado and many more injured.

The stories emerging from Greensburg are harrowing.

“If we’d stayed out in the main part of the basement, well, I don’t want to think about it,” [Debbie] Boyles said quietly. “It was scary enough where we were. I could feel the dirt and chips of concrete hitting my face and I began to wonder if the vent on top of the cellar was going to hold. I remember Tom yelling, ‘If that vent goes, we’ll be sucked out.’ But it held. Being in that little space is what saved us.”

Another tale from the same article:

[Judy] Reed remembers going to the basement and taking shelter under a craft table while pulling a quilt over her head. She also remembers a twist she gave to a quick prayer uttered as the winds began to tear at the house above her. “I said, ‘Lord, I don’t need you to hold me in the palm of your hands… I need you to turn those hands of yours over and cover me. And he did. It became just the most peaceful thing I’ve ever felt. I just knew that I was covered and I felt safe, even as I watched my house go right over the top of me and blow away to who knows where.” As it turned out the providential hands covering Reed proved to be the walls of her basement falling in on top of her. “I have lots of shelves and another inside wall and it all came in towards me and helped me keep from getting sucked out… I got what I asked for. Sometimes you do get what you ask for.”

After visiting the WikiPedia article for Greensburg this evening, I was reminded that I visited the town with my family when we drove between Liberal and Wichita a few years ago. Greensburg is home to the World’s Largest Hand-Dug Well, which I actually went down into with my two oldest children on that trip. Another interesting fact about Greensburg is that it is home to “a half-ton (1,000 lb, 450 kg) pallasite meteorite.” Also according to the WikiPedia article about the well (citing a Wichita Eagle newspaper article) the meteorite has been located.

The WikiPedia article for the May 2007 Tornado Outbreak includes a detailed article about the Greensburg tornado.

Greensburg tornado picture

YouTube-posted videos of the Greensburg tornado provide a much more chilling and visually arresting perspective on the power of this storm. The following was posted by stormchaser Warren Faidley:

Videos like the following, taken at night, show with intermittent lightning flashes the enormous width of the twister that struck Greensburg:

My prayers are with the families and friends of those killed, injured and affected by these tragic storms last week.

If you are studying these tornadoes with your students this week, make sure you read about the Enhanced Fujita Scale on WikiPedia. Remember you can use the YouTube downloader and a free flash video (FLV) player application to download offline copies of the above videos and others now on YouTube of these storms, since most school district content filters block all access to YouTube for both teachers and students.

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