Life in Tornado Alley

March 12th, 2006 | Filed under Lawrence, Life, Photos

I had all of these grandiose plans today to drive to KC and play paintball with Buck and Gordo, however the bellow of the Lawrence tornado sirens at 8:10 this morning changed my plans a bit.

Apparently there was a pseudo-tornado that blew through the east side of town early this morning. Living in Kansas almost my entire life I’ve come to expect this kind of weather every spring, however, we usually have a pretty good warning when it comes to this kind of severe weather. For some reason the sirens didn’t go off until right around the time the storm hit. To make matters worse, for a couple of hours this morning/afternoon the auto-switch on the sirens was broken and they had to be manually operated. Not exactly the kind of info that makes you feel incredibly safe.

I took the girlfriend downtown to work, and we went a little early to grab a cup of coffee at Milton’s. However, Milton’s decided not to open due to the weather and we ended up walking to the other side of Mass to grab a drink at Taza. Here are a bunch of pics of the damage we saw as we walked up and down the street.

Evidently, the storm also hit KU campus pretty hard as they have closed access to campus and are unsure whether or not classes will be held tomorrow. Considering this week is mid-terms I’m sure there are a bunch of students crossing their fingers…including the girlfriend.

Here are a few of posts from fellow Lawrence bloggers and friends with their reactions to the storm. Thankfully, I haven’t heard of anyone sustaining any serious injuries, but the town has definitely been a little shaken up. Reactions from; Mike Silverman, Kansas Law Student and Thoughts from Kansas.

P.S. I just got off the phone with Gordo and they just got done playing paintball because the power went out…they sounded like they had a good time. Damn storm, I really wanted to go.

Update: Check out this photo on LJWorld.com of the girlfriend’s apartment complex. Yep, that’s her complex on the left. I’m so glad that no one has been reported as seriously injured today.

Update 2: KPR (whose website is down due to damage on campus) is reporting on the radio that classes for tomorrow are cancelled due to damage to over 60 percent of campus.