THE AMAZING ANDOVER TORNADO

Friday, April 26, 1991...a huge black tornado roars across open fields near Andover and then took a sudden turn to the east. The twister, captured on videotape and now often televised as an example of a devastating tornado, chews its way through the south part of Andover into the Golden Spur Mobile Home Park.

Thirteen people died in Andover that day. Dozens were injured, more than 350 homes were destroyed and property losses were counted in the millions of dollars.

The "Andover Tornado" as it's become known, has been featured in a National Geographic television special. The program showed dramatic footage of the devastation. Since 1991, disaster planning has been developed and tornado warning sirens have been installed throughout town.

But in Kansas, tornado warnings have always been taken seriously. So people in Andover were listening in the early evening of April 26, 1991, when broadcast bulletins told of a tornado on the ground about 15 miles away, south of Wichita.

Next came word that homes near McConnell Air Force Base had been hit by the storm -- only a half-dozen miles away as the crow flies. And it was heading northeast.

Then, it appeared. The tornado, with wind speeds of up to 250 mph, announced itself in the Andover area by ripping through high-tension lines and knocking out electricity. Police drove desperately through the streets with lights and sirens on, trying to warn residents of the impending danger.

Most Andover residents had heard the broadcast warnings and took cover. Some stood on their porches from a distance and watched in horror as they came face-2-face with the menacing cloud moving through town. But many people who lived in the trailer park -- directly in the path of the tornado -- either believed they could ride out the storm or waited too late to seek shelter.

Of the 13 people who died, 11 were in the mobile home park. Two others died after jumping from their car into a ditch to ride out the storm. The entire trailer park was wiped out. More than 200 mobile homes were lifted into the air and slammed back to the ground. The nearby subdivision also took a heavy hit. Altogether, 350 homes in town were destroyed and 20 percent of the city's population was displaced.

Two other people in Wichita also died that night in the same twister, which received the second-strongest classification rating on a scale established by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• THE
• AMAZING
• ANDOVER
• TORNADO

[VonSeeka]

Thanks to all those that risked their lives to give us a complete footage of this F-5 tornado.

[calimar28]

Listen to that Thunderbolt siren crank up at 2:47 Man, I wish they didnt stop making those.

[Rallysquirrel58]

Now that is some wild footage. If I remember right wasn't the Weather Channel broadcasting live during this storm. They were in the right place at the right time. I think I remember watching the live feed as the finger snaked out of the cloud.

[gameshowluvr86]

@wwejheaton I know, right?! I'm like... "you guys are a liittle late with those sirens, ain't ya??"

[gameshowluvr86]

@wwejheaton I know, right?! I'm like... "you guys are a liiiittle late with those sirens, ain't ya??"

[AJTwister97]

isnt the first clip when it was dissipating

[wwejheaton]

2:47 N0W THEY TURN THEM ON

[Buzok5]

@MeanGene79 He did. He was doing all he could to warn everyone but some of the folks there at the Spur for whatever reason just didn't go to shelter, and some didn't survive it . Lots of times we get numb to warnings. You hear them a lot in Spring. Sometimes the storm is just on top of you and there is no good place to go. I was in the Topeka storm in 1966 too, so that never leaves you. Twice in Life been in this mess. Hope to God never again~!

[Buzok5]

SO at 5:34 folks..that was a nice brick Church. I was there. I'm a Pilot and flew the next day over the path. The Golden Spur looked like tombstones below. Bad. What is not told is this F5 was DEAD ON to the Gas Refinery in El Dorado Kansas. It's unimaginable what the devistation would have been had this thing hit there. I lost friends that day. It's a tuff life living in Kansas at times. We don't talk much on it but yer pretty much alive just because it wasn't time yet. You know it after.

[TheZepmeister]

At 6:45-7:00 mins reminds of the monster that just hit Tuscaloosa just one day over the 20th anniversary of this one. That's eerie.

[metalixmillenium15]

"Tornadoes were likely to be taped by as many as up to 12 cam-corders." WOW!

[IndependentStorm]

20 years ago today...