QUINTER, Kan. (KSNW) – Residents in one small Kansas town are still dealing with the aftermath from Monday night’s severe weather.
Quinter was hammered by high winds, rain, hail, and a tornado.
The town is coming together and cleaning up after the storm.
“We had a lot of people stop by and ask ‘who can we check on, who have you not heard from yet,’” said Ericka Nicholson, Quinter’s City Administrator. “We had to remove a rail car off of a railroad track that had tipped over.”
Quinter resident Levi Getz spent the day helping to clean up a badly damaged shed.
“There’s just a little bit of damage,” he said, “whether it was from straight line winds, or maybe a little bit of rope tornado or something, but a little bit of damage here or there. A few businesses suffered some damage.”
The shed his friend owns was housing his boat, but he’s hopeful it’s intact.
“I think it’s all right. It’s holding up the roof for right now, so hopefully we can get that out once we progress a little farther in.”
Evidence of the storm is scattered across town.
“We’re seeing a lot of roof damage,” said Nicholson. “We’ve seen a lot of trees down. Pieces and parts of buildings have blown into other parts of town.”
Nicholson says no people were seriously injured. Unfortunately, she says one dog died in the storm.
The National Weather Service determined that three tornadoes impacted Gove county. All three were brief tornadoes that lasted only a few minutes. Read the report below.
SURVEY FROM NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
TORNADO #1
Rating: EF-1
Estimated peak wind: 95 mph
Path length /Statute/: 0.4 miles
Path width /Maximum/: 75 yards
Fatalities: 0
Injuries: 0
Start date: October 2nd 2017
Start time: 7:43 PM CDT
Start location: 10 SSW Gove City, KS
End date: October 2nd 2017
End time: 7:44 PM CDT
End location: 10 SSW Gove City, KS
Several large trees snapped in a creek bottom. In addition, a few farm structures suffered significant damage to the roof. Many limbs snapped on the property. A window or two broken. Other sheet metal was blown from fencing. Some metal roofing blowing into a field northeast of the farm property.
TORNADO #2
Rating: EF-0
Estimated peak wind: 85 mph
Path length /Statute/: 0.15 miles
Path width /Maximum/: 50 yards
Fatalities: 0
Injuries: 0
Start date: October 2nd 2017
Start time: 7:58 PM CDT
Start location: 5 ESE Gove City, KS
End date: October 2nd 2017
End time: 7:59 PM CDT
End location: 5 ESE Gove City, KS
A structure collapsed due to high winds and walls/support giving way. In addition, a trailer was blown over from the north to the south. If straight-line winds were to have occurred, trailer would have blown over from the southwest to the northeast. Several tree limbs snapped. A single-pole residential cell tower was blown over.
TORNADO #3
Rating: EF-1
Estimated peak wind: 95 mph
Path length /Statute/: 0.60 miles
Path width /Maximum/: 100 yards
Fatalities: 0
Injuries: 0
Start date: October 2nd 2017
Start time: 8:24 PM CDT
Start location: Quinter
End date: October 2nd 2017
End time: 8:24 PM CDT
End location: Quinter
Many structures damaged in the down of Quinter. Tornado began at the elementary school with damage to the playground equipment and fence blown over. Tornado continued northeast and impacted a city building, a few businesses, a few single-wide mobile homes and a few one family residences. Damaged ranged from shingle loss, blown over porches, a single-wide mobile home blown off its supports and broken windows. Numerous trees with significant branch damage or snapped trunks. A few structures with metal roofing lost some of the panels, blown into a field northeast of town. Evident path through a few wind breaks where trees on the ends were not impacted yet trees in the middle were snapped.
EF Scale: The Enhanced Fujita Scale Classifies Tornadoes into the
following categories.
EF0…Weak……65 to 85 mph
EF1…Weak……86 to 110 mph
EF2…Strong….111 to 135 mph
EF3…Strong….136 to 165 mph
EF4…Violent…166 To 200 mph
EF5…Violent…>200 mph*
by Santiago Kahn
Published: October 3, 2017
