(Editor’s note: NewsCow blogger and Cowley County native Keith Anglemyer submitted this column marking the 20 year-anniversary of a violent tornado that ripped through the area in April 1991.)
Most people can remember details of days in which significant national news stories break.
For instance, I can remember where I was when the first man walked on the moon (my grandparents’ farm east of Rock), when Richard Nixon resigned (Cowley County Fairgrounds), when President Reagan was shot (driving west on 9th on front of what was then the Winfield 7th and 8th Grade Center), the Challenger explosion (lunchroom at Spearville High School), the Oklahoma City bombing (library of LaCygne Elementary School), and the terrorist attacks of 9/11 (coming in from marching band practice at Winfield High School).
Many also remember events that personally happened in their lives, such as a wedding, or the birth of a child, or accidents and other tragedies. Driving up on a school bus fire one evening on an after-school route and not initially knowing the children were safe will always be a vivid memory.
No day, though, will stand out more in my mind than the events of April 26, 1991.
Around this part of the state, that will forever be known as the day of the Andover tornado. This week, the media has replayed many of those video scenes from that terrible day that left many dead and injured and hundreds if not more without homes.
But it is also the day that a tornado, perhaps as big as F4 or F5, tore through parts of Cowley County, and in the process, destroyed my parents’ house four miles east of Winfield.
And the reason I can remember it so well is because I’ll never forget the feeling of helplessness and dread I had as I searched for any information on the Wichita TV stations. After all, they were so busy with the Andover situation that they had no time for Cowley County.
The weather was fine in Syracuse, Kan., where we were living at the time, and I’m not sure how I even initially discovered the weather situation to the east. But somehow, I caught the news that severe weather was battering portions of Wichita.
I was watching that coverage right before leaving to go accompany a student singing a solo for a senior banquet at the high school. I happened to hear Mike Smith on channel 3 mention something in the middle of all of the Andover news – a tornado reported on the ground four miles east of Winfield.
Four miles east of Winfield – was the address of my parents’ house!
My world was thrown into immediate turmoil. At that point, I started frantically switching the channels between the local stations (even now, here living in western Kansas again, we still get our network stations from Wichita) hoping to hear any other news.
I tried to call my parents’ home, but got no answer. I then called my aunt and uncle’s house, which was four miles north of my parents’ house, and got their answering machine, but didn’t leave a message.
I regretted that later on when I called there again and got a busy signal, a sign that the phones were not in working order.
I started getting the same signal each time I called my parents’ number.
I went to play for the student, but my mind was not on what I was doing, and I played horribly.
So bad, in fact, that after the song was over, the student asked me if anything was wrong, since I had struggled so much. I think I mumbled something about “later” and rushed out the door and back into the agony of waiting.
Outside of those living in Andover that night, I was probably the most informed person on the aftermath of the tornado there, because that was all that the TV stations were carrying on the news that night, and perhaps rightly so, since it was such a devastating tornado.
But to throw out the tornado on the ground east of Winfield, and then have no follow-up…for us that night, was just torture.
And so we waited, 300 miles away, helplessly switching back and forth between the three local TV stations, dialing Winfield phone numbers, hoping to hear any word.
Driving back was a nearly six hour trek, and without cell phones in those days, not being able to get news during that drive would have been worse than waiting by the phone with no news coming in.
For a long time, we knew nothing.
I say there were no cell phones, but that’s not true. Actually, it was my uncle’s cell phone that enabled my dad to finally reach us. It was terrible reception, after all, the technology was still fairly primitive, but I could hear what I needed to hear – the house was gone, but my parents and brother were fine.
Dad may have told me other things on that call, but I remember feeling as if the weight of the world had been lifted away from me, so I probably didn’t listen very well.
I knew what I needed to know – they were safe. He did tell me that they were invited to dinner at a friends’ house in Winfield the evening of the storm, so they weren’t home when the tornado hit. Looking at pictures from the aftermath later on, it was a good thing they were gone.
I wasn’t able to get back to Winfield for about 10 days after it happened, and I wasn’t in on much of the cleanup, so I’ll always be grateful to the hundreds of people who poured out their hearts to help my parents and brother after that fateful day.
Mom and dad rebuilt a beautiful house on the existing foundation where the old house stood. But as nice as it is, I don’t think it’s worth the pain they endured seeing their old house literally picked up and slammed against a row of pine trees to the north.
I’d seen news stories about other tornadoes before, and I’ve seen them since.
But on April 26, 1991, the destruction of a tornado became personal, and I will never again look at another tornado damage story without feeling the pain of the victims involved.