Garden City cleaning up tornado damage despite blizzard-like conditions
GARDEN CITY, Kan. (KSNW) – Cleanup continues despite blizzard-like conditions after a tornado caused damage in Garden City.
A National Weather Service team surveyed the damage Monday morning. They say the tornado was an EF1 with winds of 90 miles per hour. It started around 3:30 p.m. on Sunday. The path was 2.5 miles long and 50 yards wide.
The NWS did not issue a tornado warning for the storm.
According to KSN Storm Track 3 Meteorologist Jack Maney, Garden City saw a 30-degree difference in temperatures:
Cleanup crews have been out since 9 a.m. working on cleaning up some of the mess caused by this tornado. This is some of the worst of the damage in this residential neighborhood just east of U.S. Highway 83.
In the video above, you can see fences that have been knocked over; nothing is left but metal supports. You might wonder where all the knocked-down wood is. Crews were in the alleyway earlier in the day, using heavy machinery to pick up pieces of broken fence.
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Homeowners in the area were already told earlier today to bring other debris to the curb to be disposed of.
Garden City Public Works & Utilities Director Mike Muirhead says the City was on high alert leading up to the tornado with people on call from every department.
“They were prepared for high winds, which can cause problems; we had the street department and public works with dump trucks ready in the event of debris or trees getting knocked over,” said Muirhead.
Muirhead says the damage was contained to a pretty small area. One side of a residential street and some commercial damage.
KSN spoke with Hillary Watson, whose property was damaged. It may be snowing in Garden City, but on Sunday, it was hailing when a tornado passed right by her house.
According to Watson, it was storming outside when her power went out, and she began to hear sirens. That’s when she stepped to her window to look at what was going on outside. She’s lived in Garden City for over a decade, so she’s used to sirens, but as she looked out the window, she saw limbs and trees flying around.
Watson then grabbed her dog and ran to take shelter in her bathtub.
“I didn’t look outside again for maybe 10 minutes, and then I saw no fence, and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, that was really, really close.’ It seems like it just followed the alleyway up,” she said.
She says that even though the experience was scary, having neighbors around after the fact helped. About an hour after the tornado happened, once the storm died down, neighbors were outside picking up debris and putting it by the curb. They also picked through the rubble to see what belonged to whom.
Crews have made pretty steady progress, and most of the debris looks cleared up.
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