Hesston Kansas Tornado

[NavCorps1]

I was living in the country when my family went outside to look at the tornado while it was happening. I was only 3 and remember this vividly

[BigDaddyOldDude]

My friend Becky lost her arm in this tornado. Terrifying!!

[sharpt00th]

I wasnt here when it happend, but from what some people in town say it was horrifying.

[rjessicu]

I was born the day that this tornado hit!

[thestormchaser777]

one mean beast.

[jeshpeter146]

I want to live in Tornado Alley!

[sonic4sale]

they are so damn interesting! :( we never got them here, i guess thats both good and bad. theyd be amazing to look at and study but the damage :/

[padude64]

For a tornado of this magnitude to maintain itself, it must be choked off by downdrafts defeating updrafts!

[jokrfred]

I went to Hesston College when this happened, and there were a ton of students out watching this tornado. We were very lucky that the tornado changed paths 1/2 mile away and missed the college. There would've been a lot more lives lost. The way the town got together afterward was really incredible.  The College shut down for 2 days after that so that we as students could go out and volunteer with the clean up. Amazing storm and memories!

[ponys1rocks2]

you should see hesston you would think this place never even had a F5 ik its been years but i thought some places would be wrecked up a little but its completely rebuilt and if you didnt see it Go to 1:25 you see a house get ripped off the ground and sucked inside

[68dz302]

i was 6 when this hit hesston, i lived in newton and we were headed to salina on I-135. we had to stop as the tornado passed through hesston and over I-135! It was scary as hell, i will never forget it!

[PlumboStudios21]

This was a tornado similer to one that struck Saxonburg PA except it was 5 Years earlier and had been an 1/2 Wide Multi Vortex storm with confirmed F3-4 Damage with some speculated F5 Damage with homes swept away

[onehitta1]

This song is cool : ]

[jbtornado]

The tornado that really started me into this lifetime fascination.. No I never saw it in person, but it hit just 45 miles from where I lived, saw its aftermath, and was 8 when it occurred.. So many amazing dynamics came together for this storm, and it was very early for in the year for a tornado that powerful, that far north and west... What amazes me more is after this F5 tornado died (which hit Hesston) the same thunderstorm produced another F5 tornado later.. Incredible!!

[dragonridley]

From what I hear this tornado was still on the ground when the second one formed and that as this one roped out it got absorbed by the second tornado.

[eeyoreroxxx]

god

[macguy1234]

how incredible

[tornadolion]

omg this tornado happened on my birthday O_O

[brzlianchick]

Poor Hesston!

[envy69]

Lived my entire life in Kansas and had never seen a tornado, until this one. I lived in Haven and was just out of school. Watched this massive black wall (sure as hell did not look like the typical tornado's) cross highway 96 and through the open field beside our house. Something I will never forget. I now live in Iowa and watched Parkersburg, IA go through the same destruction. I hope they have the strength and sheer will to survive and rebuild.

[tortwister]

Hypnotic O_O

Fantastic video and music.

[Brivixxycej8]

at 1:26 the shadow flying into the tornado isn't that the roof of the factory?

[jrinn11]

It's tons of powdered cement from a huge cement factory that was destroyed

[ponys1rocks2]

i think it was a house but either way its still bad

[bugggs815]

For all that are familiar with Hesston, I lived across the street from Excel when the tornado hit, a day I will never forget. It was amazing how the town came together afterwards.

[mexboiii]

torandos are fucking awesome/scary but when one forms when its getting dark they look fucking SCARY!

[tompow]

Eighteen years ago yesterday, and the only thing left to remind people is the remnants of Hesston Concrete across the street from Kropf Lumber.

[Saxy64]

I was delivering freight out to Boeing in Wichita that day, and I remember a really steady flowing breeze, about 15-19 MPH, that was like "suction" and blowing toward the northwest. Later I heard about this tornado. I guess it was being fed. Weird

[wiley1080]

that thing is huge. what R U doing just standing there and recording it?!? U SHOULD BE RUNNING MAN!!!!

[Jedikeri]

I remember that tornado. Almost took out my school. Missed my house by a block and a half.

[metalhippie589]

That tornado is a freaking beast, if i ever saqw any tornado like that in person, i would be paralyzed in fear and / fill my pants lol

[jwsisk]

god i dont miss seeing that tornado.. i lived a mile and a half from the pizza hut on the east side of hesston.. it came within 3/8ths of a mile of the mobile home we lived in at the time.. had papers from towns 50 miles away in our yard.. i was in town at a storm shelter when it came in.. was 11 at the time.. remember looking up out of the little rectangular window.. the noise was ungodly loud.. remember the ground shaking.. never want to go through that experience again..

[blazr243]

I remember watching the Home Show the day the tornado hit. It was described as looking like it came straight out of Hell.

Great video; what's the music you used?

[chaserchick87]

You do good work. I like looking through your stuff:)

[crosscountrytc]

destroyed more than just several homes....more like half of hesston...

[crosscountrytc]

Oh wow........that tornado made a perfect half circle around the town I live in. I was only one at the time but I guess we high tailed it out of town because we were supposed to take a direct hit. It may not have been called the Hesston tornado if it had hit us. It would have wiped us away, just like greensburg.

[kanee97]

poor kansas,aint got nothing left bc al the tornadoes whipe it out,in a couple of years kansas aint gone be no city no more.Watch what i tell you,JUST WHATCH!

[tompow]

That's what people said about Florida after Hurricane Andrew, but Florida is still thriving, better than before.

[jetmech86]

ok, moron

[ILovestorms]

This is probably the most terrifying tornado I have ever seen. Anyone else think this tornado is scary?

[Anticyclonic]

It's pretty imposing, yeah. Have you checked out the Great Bend tornado of 8/30/74? I've got that one posted, as well. Lots of people think it's one of the scariest twisters ever filmed. It's always been one of my favourites.

[ILovestorms]

Is that the same tornado as the Ash Valley tornado on that day at the end of August 1974?

[Nathans91]

No, this tornado touched down in March of 1990.

[movielover1227]

Holy cow! That thing looks like it just about tripled in size in 60 seconds! Beautiful.

[Jamiesyme999]

microburst would be an excellent reason for it to move like sometime how when an rfd makes the bottom of the funnel swing out from its regualr path so should the cold downdrafts of a microburst ....was the burst from an adjacent storm or the same system?

[tompow]

I don't remember if there were any other storms that occured at the same time as this one, but a second tornado followed an hour or two later, luckily veered north before entering town.

[chromeoverbrass]

Would that soundtrack music be The Police from Brimstone & Treacle?

[Anticyclonic]

Yes! Ding ding ding! You are correct! LOL...it's a good tune.

BTW sorry about the "pending approval" for comments, guys. Thought I had changed all my vids back to automatic. But you know the influx of chain letters on here lately.

[BrianL1976]

Wow! Where else could i find Hesston college grads! Go Larks.

[tompow]

I have lived in Hesston all my life, even now, and unfortunately, you graduated two years before the next tornado warning, which was only a funnel cloud. The same thing in 2001, also.

[BrianL1976]

As a Hesston college 1996 graduate i am glad i got to see the video and ekstatic(as Mike Tyson would say) that i wasn't in or near it. We had a couple severe warnings in 95 and 96 and had to go to the yost center basement(rec room)where the students would be safe. Kansas was a nice break from busy eastern Pa but the tornado scares kept you honest.

[koehnb79]

I actually remember this one pretty good... I was 11 and my family and I were driving to Burton, KS. We turned around because my dad had just bought a new car and he didn't want hell dents on it. We were going to seek shelter at several different houses on the way back.. The next day we discovered all those houses to have been destroyed.... The water tower was leaning pretty bad.. but it didn't fall as far as i know..

[garageboy23A]

you mean that water tower at 1:43 in the video?

[RiChEiGsTi]

(cont'd) This microburst spared the campus damage and reduced damage to other parts of town (although over 100 houses were damaged, as well as businesses). It could have been much worse. I believe God intervened. I know a woman specifically who prayed "Not the campus God, not the campus..." Thx for posting! (Interesting music selection btw)

[tompow]

Just south of the College is a nursing home and they don't (or didn't) have a sufficient basement. If the microburst had not occured, dozens would have died and it probably would be seen as the deadliest tornado since the Tri-State tornado.

[RiChEiGsTi]

I was a HC student on campus at the time. We actually watched it for a while (maybe 1/2 hour)coming straight at the campus (before faculty got everyone inside). It was incredible. It actually had 4 funnels for a while before turning into one big one. A half mile or so away from town, it veered a bit before continuing its same course. Meteorologists could not explain why it did that except to say a "microburst" pushed it and made it turn. It had not turned until then...

[beserker1912]

my home state and the year before i was born.

[tompow]

I was four years old when the tornado went through. It missed my house by a block, but hit my grandmother's house. I don't believe there was ever an accurate reading of wind speed of the tornado, because of the technology of 1990. Who knows, it may have been stronger than 5-03-1999!

[AVtornado74]

If you look closley you can see that this was actually a multiple vortex twister.

[sandyj317]

Did it take the water tower too? Thanks for posting this.

[tedFrost]

The May 3, 1999 tornado that went through Moore, OK was clocked at 318 mph.

[crohnsappleadams]

The OKC F5 wasn't classified as an F6 because the scale is actually meant to classify damage, not wind speed. They clocked wind speeds at 320+ around the time that it was in Moore, OK, but were satisfied that the classification of an F5 was adequate to describe the nature of the damage, or more specifically that the damage wasn't so incredible as to warrant a new category.

[Jamiesyme999]

btw most documentaries sayt he highest speed recorded was 318 mph on the may 3rd tornado pls reference ur info of the f6 from a reputable source. f5 damage i thought was house gone

just foundation left

note much more damage than that can be done

[aquasuwing]

Two years before I was born. It jumped right over our old house though. We have video too. Destroyed my fourth grade teachers house.Amazing.

[kendricbeachey]

(part 2 of my comment...) A few miles northeast of Hesston, this tornado kind of lost steam, but a new one formed very nearby, and the two joined forces to form a second F5, near Goessel. The new tornado promptly ran over a large storage shed on my stepdad's parents' property south of Goessel (Meridian Rd and Arapaho)...where many of my belongings had been stored about 10 days prior. Rats!

[kendricbeachey]

This tornado missed my house by about half a block (12 Pheasant Run Rd in Hesston...if you're looking at a map of Hesston, it went through King Park (west to east) and nailed the Pizza Hut and Sav-A-Trip on the north side of Lincoln Blvd/Dutch Ave). I got home about five minutes before it hit (around 5 pm). My car, parked outside, was damaged by debris--a piece of wood impaled the rear windshield. We had only moved in about a month earlier...welcome to the neighborhood!

[ricexc]

the one in okc was also the one rumored to be 319mph

[JAAPJXBIT]

thats a mistake 18 ppl died in Andover that day and the biggest tornado in the history was OK tornado with winds of 318mph and i heard about another with winds of 319mph but im not sure.

[DemonOtter]

actually, no that wasn't a mistake. At the time, 1990, this was the most powerful tornado on record. Andover beat it the following year. The Oklahoma F5 wasn't until 9 years later. Also, as far as the Andover tornado was concerned, 4 people died in the Greenwich Heights subdivision, and 13 in the Golden Spur mobile home park for a total of 17 in Andover--There were over 50 twisters that day throughout the midwest that resulted in additional deaths & injuries.

[ProfessorIgor]

prior to 1990, there were several tornados that were as powerful or even moreso than Hesston.. 3 of them were on 4-3-74. Brandenburg, KY, Xenia, OH, & Guin, AL. There is evidence that has shown the Mulhall, OK tornado on 5-3-99 to be as or even more powerful than the Moore event. It was MUCH larger, 1600m at one point

[DemonOtter]

At the time, this was the most powerful F5 on record--highest wind speed was logged just outside the city limits. This particular tornado was on the ground for 2 1/2 hours & over 100 miles. Lives lost, a little boy and an elderly woman, were actually in separate communities; there were no serious injuries within Hesston itself. 13 months, 13 days and 13 minutes laster, an even more powerful F5 hit Andover,KS, killing 17 and injuring hundreds more.

[skylarthompson]

was this an f5?

[LatinoAzure]

I remember this! That black spot that is slow mo'ed is supposedly powdered concrete mix. The 'nado blew over a cement factory, right?

[skylarthompson]

good job!! this is good

[Anticyclonic]

Thank you very much! I appreciate it! :o)

[X7393]

Wow! 1990-I was still in HS.this is interesting Footage..Great Job..

[MrStarchest]

I was in the air force stationed at Mcconnell AFB. I headed up a group fromthe base and contacted the Chief of Police (Mickey DeHook) and worked with several people for over a week cleaning up and helping wherever we could. I will never forget it.....