Andover Kansas Tornado 1991 Aftermath NEW VIDEO

[guelidj09]

amazing Video ist is in my favorits Why do you put your video so late in youtube. Ich try to find out where the tornado established and which was his route exactly. i am from germany and i love tornados

[EverGone4]

I live where the tornado happened........

[Torn80cj]

I thought El Reno Oklahoma was going to look like this on May 24, 2011. I was storm chasing and the tornado was headed straight for the town I live in, then it took a slight left turn and hit the North side missing the heavier populated areas. I thought my home was not going to be there anymore as the tornado passed by me. It was an EF 5 rated tornado just like this one that hit your home. I'm glad no one was killed in your neighborhood, we had 2 people killed in northern El Reno.

[freekshowdelux]

i lived in derby at the time this happened watch it take out MCconnell airforce base first crazy stuff

[ACEOO8]

DAM WHAT A MESS CLEAN THAT PLACE UP Ô¿Ô

[AFACF]

is that cloud ridge apartments, just behing the shopping center and the old Hurts Supper club, right in the middle of andover? been years since I lived there but thats what it looks like

[fldoughboy72]

Looks Like you got the worst of it vs. your neighbors. Wow!

[Discokid715]

Holy crap. I saw your other video of the strom approaching. This is unreal.

[crazy4you12345]

wow this is the same place u were filming in the first video???!?!?! thats crazy!! it looks nothing the same i hope everyone was alright!!

[EliteAmericans]

Did anyone else notice the plastic clotheshanger still on the rack

[khaler2000]

did you guys ride this thing out in a basement or just a lower floor? So glad you made it through and thanks for posting.

[DadOf4Spartans]

@khaler2000

We were in the basement under the stairwell.

On a side note - we had a couple of cats at the time and they went to the basement long before we did...instinct I guess.

[kenhoupt]

Thanks for sharing

[clash7samurai]

Did you ride this out in your basement??

[menopausin1]

When the F5 wiped out Guin, Al, there was was a small cafe leveled. The one hanger in the closet in this video reminds me of the potato chip rack left in the cafe with the potato chips still in it. This looks similar to Guin, except there were very few homes left untouched. You couldn't tell where it started or stopped. When it sat down, it leveled the town. It looked like bombs had gone off. Like the part of this one where there was nothing standing.

[clash7samurai]

@menopausin1 It is hard to find photos of that brutal Guin tornado. It must have been unbelievable.

[menopausin1]

@clash7samurai I saw some footage on an ABC 33/40 (B'ham, AL TV station) video. The pics I've seen, I couldn't make heads or tails out of. The Methodist Church had 3 stories and it was leveled...the only way I could tell was the front part where the basement was. I've lived in Guin all my life, but looking at the pics, there's no way I can figure out where they're made. It was said that Mr. Fujita came to Guin and when he was through, he wanted to add a number to the scale because of wind speed.

[menopausin1]

@clash7samurai I have a video James Spann, one of our local meteorologists did a few years later. It WAS unbelievable. It looked like a war zone. We lived close to train tracks, and it sounded exactly like one coming from the town west of us. I tried to post a link to the video, but it wouldn't let me.

[menopausin1]

@clash7samurai It was unbelievable. And it did sound like a train. Exactly. We lived close to the tracks and I couldn't tell the difference. Until it got about a mile from us. It sounded like 100 going over the cellar we were in. It looked like bombs had gone off. The destruction and death were almost more than a person could bear. I was 16 and lost one of my best friends, some more friends, 23 altogether in our small town.

[DarkC12ow]

Tornado do strange things they are amaing ,deadly, and strange all at the same time. But the good thing is when we know what to do to avoid the loss of life in a storm. Again I am glad your family made it through. The closest I came to this storm was when I was in Goddard for school it came through town right as we were about to get out for the day. Being a life long resident of this state I know how tornado's can be.

[Fuel4TheSoul03GT]

I noticed at 4:27-4:28 the old yellow pickup sitting on the side of the street. Is that the same pickup that was sitting in your neighbor's driveway in your first video as the tornado was approaching? If so....That is incredible it survived that F5

[crohnsappleadams]

The single hanger still on the bar in the closet at 1:46.... awesome.

[MedelProductions]

Did you ever get a chance to see your original camcorder that you taped the first video with (because you said your orginal camcorder was trashed by the tornado but the tape surrvived)?

[corepuncher]

Now THATS tornado damage. This one and the 5/3/99 damage is the worst I've seen.

[khaler2000]

Thanks for these great videos....sooo glad you all are ok and hope you have rebuilt and life is better for all of you!

[Noordledoordle]

Wow, this is very intense. There is something very surreal about that singular little hanger still sitting in the closet at 1:44, even though the rest of the closet is swept clean.

Also chilling is the stark before and after of the two videos. This place looks like a different world entirely than the first video.

[Yamaharaptorboy]

man that is sooooo scary........i would be thanking God for protecting you

[xxcurnuxx]

did your house take a direct impact

[dbrockett50]

Impressive. I was amazed how calm both you and your wife were with it approaching. I think I would have stayed and taped also. They can be so mesmerizing to watch. Incredible force of nature.

[autiger621]

Thanks for the thorough information. These two vids are some of the best tornado footage I have ever seen, and very high quality for the early 90's.

[autiger621]

Can you give a little bit of background on what happened during/after the tornado? Where did you ride out the tornado, basement? How much time before it hit once you stopped filming in the first vid? Did you consider trying to drive out of the tornadoes path (your first vid was almsost 10 minutes long). At what time in this video are you pointing the camera in the same direction as you where filming the tornado approach?

[DadOf4Spartans]

@autiger621: I estimate that from the end of the tornado video until it hit our house was about 1 to 1.5 minutes. We went to the basement during the tornado and hid under the stairwell; I knew we would be safe there. The only thing I was worried about was something heavy, like a car, being dropped on the house.

[DadOf4Spartans]

As the tornado went over our house it was surreal. First the power went out, then you could hear the wind. It didn't sound like a freight train. It was a loud, high pitched whistling; like 300 mph wind. There were also a lot of loud thumps and bumps as debris hit. The wind noise continued to increase then there was a sudden decompression and you could literally feel the air rapidly being sucked out of the basement.

[DadOf4Spartans]

About that time, as I was looking up at the ceiling, light appeared all the way down the foundation so I knew the house was gone. When we came up out of the basement there was sheetrock and insulation filling the stairwell and you could smell gas in the air from all the broken lines.

[DadOf4Spartans]

The first thing I did was look at the apartments and the old folks home across the street from us and I was relieved to see that they were still there. Then I looked east at the mobile home park and realized that it was gone.

[DadOf4Spartans]

In this video I am looking the same direction as the tornado approach at 2:52, 3:16, 3:58 and again at 4:26.

[vanni9283]

@DadOf4Spartans

How fast do you think the tornado was moving at?

[Bororeed]

@vanni9283

This tornado was moving at around 40mph, on a mostly NE heading. That said, it did, like most strong tornadoes, jogged either more northerly or easterly at times.

[sgtmattkind]

Great shooting!

[StormChaseChicago]

This was minutes after it hit, correct? You guys are so lucky to be alive, especially since it was an F5.

[DadOf4Spartans]

No, this was two days later...it was a much bigger mess immediately after the tornado hit.

Here's some advice for people living in tornado country...keep a pair of shoes in your basement. I had to walk around in my socks for two hours until we could get a ride out of there lol.

[leftyguitar1120]

As someone who watched the tornado from a mile south of your location this was a real spooky video. I hope you can get the edited version up soon!

[Bororeed]

The damage shows just how compact the tornado was, as the apartments just to your north had minimal damage, at least in views on here. I've seen some great pcics that I managed to use Google Earth and all and determined they were taken on Central, just a few blocks north. Andover got lucky though, as the tornado maxed out in width north of the KS TPK, west of El Dorado Lake.

[DadOf4Spartans]

I was on the northern edge of the tornado south of central on 2nd street. The damage to the south of me was a conservative half of a mile. Watch when I pan up and down the street while i'm filming the trailer park north of andover road and you'll have some idea of the scale. Homes bigger than mine were scoured down to the foundation in the middle of the tornado.

[DadOf4Spartans]

The apartments were made out of brick which saved them. There was some roof damage and the inflow/RFD? rearranged some cars in the parking lot and even "floated" one car completely out of the lot and into the street in front of my house with no damage other than broken windows...ironically it was a brand new Geo Storm hahaha!

[Bororeed]

It may have been a spin up suction vortex, but have no way of telling. The apartments seemed to have been on the very northern periphery of the damage path in addition to the rather compact size of the windfield and it's forward speed, saved those buildings. In several videos, you can see the tornado "breathing" as the two or three dominant vorticies rotate around the common center. Of course, there were numerous smaller vorticies that were born and died in very short lifespans.

[Bororeed]

Those can create rapid variations in the core damage path width, and can be seen in the damage report map that I've looked at before.

[vanni9283]

@Bororeed

Wasn't it at it's strongest, though, when it hit the mobile home park?

[Bororeed]

@vanni9283

It obviously was because that area in and around Golden Spur is what the rating was based off of. That said, the tornado grew much larger NE of Andover over mainly open country along the KS Turnpike, so it may have been stronger there, but will never know.

[vanni9283]

@Bororeed

Other than the overpass video (a separate tornado produced by the same storm that moved through Andover) , I can't recall seeing a video of the tornado NE of Andover.

May I ask if you think the tornado had reached F5 strength by the time that it hit your house? As I can see from the video, very little of your house was left behind as a result this storm.

[Bororeed]

@vanni9283

There is only one video clip I've ever seen of this same tornado, much larger by then, NE of Andover. There is also a picture from a storm chaser out there.

This house is on the relative edge of the extensive damag, F5 damage occured in this subdivision just a street or two south and that rating of damage continued to the NE, through the trailer park.

FYI, this isn't my video or anything, I just know this tornado very well as I've done a good bit of research on this event.

[vanni9283]

@Bororeed

That's cool.

To me, the damage that was done to this particular house was, at a very minimum, strong F3 damage, but that's only considering that some parts of the home remained intact.

I should let you know that there is a NWS chart which shows the path of this tornado along with its Fujita intensity ratings during its path. I'd recommend looking at it to see how the tornado fluctuated in intensity over it's lifespan.

[Bororeed]

@vanni9283

Which is what I already stated. I have seen that graph and also stated this house was on the edge of the extenxive damage path, not the core, nor the periphery. This tornado had a very compact damage path for such a violent tornado and with the clearly evident multi-vortex structure it had, rapid fluctuations can occur, even on the same street. Notice the damage to the hosue next door, F2 at most, on the other side, just shy of F4.

[vanni9283]

@Bororeed

What's complicated is that we see a house with a few parts that remain in tact, while other parts of it may very well have been swept away. To me, that's a cross between high-end F3 damage and F5 damage, which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

[Bororeed]

@vanni9283

Walls that are still standing that are part of the same house constitutes F3. F4 is all walls removed, but the foundation has not been swept clean. F5 is a swept foundation. Of course, this was before the new scale took effect in 2007.

Multiple vortex tornadoes, such as this one, can produce extreme variations of damage on the same street, as shown in the video. This tornado was only about 600ft wide when it was in Andover, but widened further over open land NE of town.

[vanni9283]

@Bororeed

Isn't it amazing that such a devastating tornado can be so interesting and so fascinating at the same time?

[DadOf4Spartans]

@Bororeed

If you google "200 2nd street andover, kansas" and look at the satellite view the actual damage was all the way from 2nd street just south of Douglas which is a little over 1/3 of a mile. The damage in the center of the tornado was F5 with foundations swept clean and the damage on the edge was mainly what my house looked like.

[sersame]

@DadOf4Spartans From what I understand, the smaller yet powerful satellite vortices, sometimes only yards wide, can account for the utter destruction right near intact objects & structures, much like with your bisected house right adjacent to the relatively intact neighbor's house; then destruction farther out as they traveled on a longer radius on subsequent revolutions around the main vortice. Amazing video.

[DadOf4Spartans]

@Bororeed

Like you, I always thought it was odd that the house next door to me didn't sustain more damage as there was a restaurant leveled just a couple of hundred feet on up the street. In fact, when I came up out of the basement I could hear the telephone ringing in the house next door...surreal!!

[broncoj20]

Hey, did you set the tornado video to private? It's really a fascinating video and I'd love to see it again!

[DadOf4Spartans]

Yes...I'm going to clean it up to improve the quality and repost it in a few days.

[jcpalmer1976]

Again.. Incredible video! You guys are incredibly lucky!

[terracoat]

Insane. Watching the first video to the second is just insane. I have to ask, do you have any footage during the impact?

[DadOf4Spartans]

Unfortunately not but it was my mistake...I actually took the camera into my kids bedroom and set it on a dresser looking out the window. Problem was I stopped taping and forgot to restart before I ran to the basement. The camera was trashed but the tape survived so I borrowed another camera and filmed the aftermath on the same tape.

[broncoj20]

Incredible footage. Where was your general location? I'm assuming it was on the southwest side of Andover?

[DadOf4Spartans]

We were on the northern edge of the tornado on 2nd street in Andover.

[trendkill1967]

@DadOf4Spartans All these years later and I can't forget the events of that day. I happened to be just north of McConnell on Rock Rd. I like most ignored the sirens and went about my business. I stood at the side of Rock Rd. and watched it pass Webb and Greenwich Rds. It's hard to reconcile that some survived with everything while others lost it all. I now live in East PA. No one here except wife, she's from Rose Hill, KS, understands the horror we lived through that spring afternoon.

[AeroStorm911]

Wow, glad you guys made it out alive. Both videos of this event are incredible.