Warnings kept toll low in Kansas

As word of an approaching tornado spread by TV news and warning sirens Friday night, Dennis McKinney hurried his 14-year-old daughter, Lindy, down to their basement.

A neighbor was supposed to join them -- a young woman with a baby and no basement -- but she didn’t get there before the tornado hit.

So McKinney was especially anxious as he climbed his basement stairs after the storm passed.

“My house was gone and her house was gone, and I just didn’t see how she could be alive,” said McKinney, a Kansas state representative and House Democratic leader. “And then she yelled at us.... We thought it was a miracle: They were hardly scratched, and everything above had gone.”

On Saturday, McKinney and hundreds of Greensburg residents struggled to absorb the devastation left by a powerful tornado that leveled more than 90% of the town, home to about 1,400 people, about 110 miles west of Wichita.

At least nine people were killed and 50 injured as violent storms swept the region. But the consensus in Greensburg was that the toll could have been much worse.

Almost 24 hours after the tornado hit Greensburg, the threat had not subsided. A slow-moving storm system brought yet more tornadoes to nearby counties Saturday evening. Emergency crews called off their search for more victims, and residents climbed back down into underground shelters.

The National Weather Service said it had received reports “well into the double digits” of twisters touching down in six counties. Numerous tornadoes were reported from South Dakota south into Oklahoma.

As rescue workers made their way through the rubble of Greensburg, town officials warned that it could take days to find all the victims -- dead or alive -- in their flattened homes and businesses.

“The debris is just unbelievable,” said Steve Hewitt, the city administrator, at an afternoon news conference. “Even if you are in a basement, I mean your home is collapsed, and we’ve got to find a way to get to you.”

The tornado hit Greensburg, at about 9:45 p.m. Friday. It was part of a thunderstorm that spawned at least two other tornadoes in Kansas, said Michael Lacy, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Dodge City.

At least eight people were killed in Kiowa County, where Greensburg is the county seat, said Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. The ninth victim was killed in nearby Stafford County.

More than 50 people were taken to the hospital, including 16 in critical condition, said Sharon Watson, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Adjutant General’s Department.

Many credited the tornado warning system with giving so many of the town’s residents time to seek cover in cellars and basements. A warning was issued for Kiowa County at 9:19 p.m., almost half an hour before the tornado hit Greensburg, Lacy said.

“We had 30 minutes’ notice on the whistle, and that made a real difference,” said Scott Huckriede, who lost his home and his photography business. “I’m surprised half the town didn’t die.”

Huckriede, 49, who lives on Main Street, said as he emerged from his basement, he could see that half his house was gone. He began to wave his flashlight around outside but could not see any buildings, so he walked down Main Street.

“I could not recognize the intersection, and I was born and raised here,” Huckriede said.

J.D. Colclazier, 11, and his father are storm spotters -- volunteers who are trained to look for developing tornadoes. They were outside when they saw the twister heading toward them. They ran home to retrieve his 8-month-old puppy, Sophie, and climbed down to their basement. When they heard the tornado approaching, J.D.’s father told him to get under a couch.

Four minutes later, everything became quiet, so they went upstairs. Their house had disappeared. “The roof was gone and two of the walls were gone. The trees were gone. The neighbors’ houses were gone,” J.D. said. “There was a church down the street, and it was gone.”

The tornado caused extensive damage to City Hall, Kiowa County Memorial Hospital, the city’s two main high schools and Dillon’s supermarket. Homes were swept off their foundations, and shredded trees, downed power lines and overturned trucks stretched out block after block.

On Saturday, a mandatory evacuation was in force in Greensburg. Jimmy Brozk, 27, who was allowed to enter the downtown area to survey the damage to the tire store he manages, said his store was “the only thing standing around there.”

“My brother lost his house,” he said. “My other brother did too. It’s horrendous.”

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who visited Greensburg on Saturday, likened the scene to the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Hundreds of Greensburg residents took shelter in nearby Haviland. Emergency workers set up cots and supplies of bottled water, soap and diapers under a “Haviland Dragons” banner in the high school gymnasium.

At 6:45 p.m., the sky turned a dark gray, and everyone huddled around a television to watch Doppler images of the storm and listen to reports of tornadoes forming in the vicinity. An emergency worker burst into the gymnasium and warned that a tornado was on its way. Children cried as they huddled with their anxious parents in a boy’s locker room, above ground.

Until now, if Greensburg was known for anything, it was as the site of the world’s largest hand-dug well, completed in 1887 at 109 feet deep and 32 feet wide. The tornado destroyed that.

One large structure left unscathed was the Kiowa County Courthouse, which officials turned into an emergency operations center.

“We’ve got to find a way to get this to work and come to work every day and get this thing back on its feet,” said city administrator Hewitt, who also lost his home. “It’s going to be tough.”

Sebelius, who declared a disaster emergency for Kiowa County, said President Bush had assured her he was expediting a request for federal resources.

“We’re pretty used to storms in Kansas,” she said in a telephone interview, noting that a 1991 tornado in Wichita had killed 20 people. “But I think this is kind of unprecedented. This entire small community was wiped out.

“Everything you can think of that makes up a town has gone -- except for the people,” she said. “But, you know, Kansans are pretty resilient. There will be a period of mourning and grief, and then the rebuilding will be underway.”

miguel.bustillo@latimes.com

jenny.jarvie@latimes.com

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Bustillo reported from Greensburg and Jarvie from Atlanta.