Searchers Look for Missing People in Greensburg, KS after Tornado Wipes out Town
Search and rescue workers continue to look for missing persons and possible survivors in Greensburg, KS after severe weather and tornadoes desimated the town on Friday and over the weekend. At least 8 people have died in the Greensburg area from the violent weather; however, authorities are still optimistic that they will find survivors and continue to call it a “search and rescue” mission.
GREENSBURG, Kan. (AP) — Searchers went back to work Sunday looking for anyone who might have been trapped since a tornado wiped most of this south-central Kansas town off the map. “At this point, it’s still a search and rescue mission,” Kansas state trooper Ronald Knoefel said. “We don’t want to give up hope.”
Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, the state’s adjutant general, said officials did not know how many people are missing.
“A lot of people have gone to other places and it’s difficult to track them down,” he said.
At least 10 people were known dead from weekend storms. Eight of them were in the Greensburg area and two others died elsewhere in Kansas – one during the Friday night storms that hammered Greensburg and one in a second round of storms late Saturday, state officials said.
The storms in Kansas were parts of a weekend of violent weather, with tornadoes also dashing across other parts of the Plains states late Saturday. And on Sunday, the National Weather Service posted a new tornado warning for south-central Kansas, saying a funnel cloud was spotted near Corwin, 65 miles southeast of Greensburg.
The Greensburg, KS area has just been destroyed as almost every thing in the town was destroyed. The town has literally been wiped off the map. Check out the video of the damage and devastation caused by the tornado.
Hewitt estimated 95 percent of the town of 1,500 was destroyed and predicted rescue efforts could take days as survivors could be trapped in basements and under rubble.
“This is one of the most devastating tornadoes we have had in Kansas,” said U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran.
At a shelter in neighboring Haviland, Cheryll Behm said her home in Greensburg is probably repairable, unlike the rest of the town.
“I am concerned Greensburg never will be built,” said Behm, a nurse’s aide at the Greensburg hospital. “There is no place to go back to work to. All of Main Street is gone.”
Go to Post Chronicle.com for many more links to video footage.