This year's cheer camp was quite memorable for yet another reason...the June 11, 2008 tornado that just happened to whiz right OVER our dorm while we were there. So here's the scoop. We returned to our dorms from the daily camp activities at about 9:30pm that night. There was talk of possible storms and word of tornadic (did I just make that word up?) action in Claflin and Hoisington. The girls were taking showers and getting cleaned up and the residence hall staff warned that if the tornado watch turned into a warning and they sounded the sirens we needed to move to the basement, 1st, 2nd, or 3rd floors. (We were staying on the 8th floor). At about 10:30 we heard the sirens, pulled everyone from their rooms, the showers, etc and headed down the back stair case to the basement. (We're not into taking a chance and testing out that 3rd floor thing). Taking the back stairs is good advice in a camp situation as everyone and their dog was taking the main stairs. This way we made it first and had a hallway to ourselves.
The girls were not amused that the coaches were taking pictures. It was frustrating because we were clueless as to what was going on outside. KSU was also hosting a band camp and a boys basketball camp so there were all sorts of campers in the basement. (Some band boys were quite shocked to come upon some of our cheerleaders who ventured to the basement wearing only little shorts and a sports bra...I know, what were they thinking...in cheerleader world that is an acceptable outfit, in band world, not so much). Some girls were freaking out but I saw no need to be alarmed. How many times, this year alone, had the sirens blown when nothing ended up happening? It was all going to blow over and we'd be fine. Our only information was coming from the girls' parents and friends who were text messaging them. I didn't really have anyone to text with as Matt kept just saying things like, "let me know if you make it through." Storms don't really scare him either apparently. It was hard to tell the girls things like, "we'll be fine, it's not even headed our way" when they were getting accurate texts from people telling them in fact it was headed our way. We ended up staying in the basement for about 2 hours. When the storm blew over we were released to go back to our rooms. And that's when we found out just how close it had been. The F4 tornado ripped through campus from the southwest to northeast corner, jumping our dorm. All buildings around us had windows blown out and roof damage. Amazingly, good ole Moore hall did not. The school suburban (fondly referred to as "The Burb") was not so lucky. It was practically shredded. All windows blown out. Since it was dark when we were taping up the windows and stuff I don't have pics of the damage to our parking lot. But here's some of the campus damage near us.
Speed limit sign along Claflin Road practically tied in a knot. Our dorm is in the background.
This is Webber Hall (Animal Science department and rodeo arena) which is right across the street from our dorm. Parts of the roof blew out, most of the windows blew out and there was a large air conditioning unit from another building blown onto the roof of this building.
The parking lot right behind Waters and Cardwell, across the street from Umberger, just west of our dorm got it the worst. Trees were uprooted, sliced and diced. Also cars were turned over and moved.
Here's another shot of Webber Hall but I took this pic (from our dorm room) so you could see the copper dome in the distance of Jardine apartments. Pieces of this copper dome were in our parking lot at Moore.
Tornadoes are crazy. I really learned a lot from seeing the aftermath of this storm.
1. Praise God we were in the safest place possible.
2. Tornadoes on the ground don't really mow everything down in their path, they really just jump and twist from thing to thing.
3. Now, even when they are just testing the sirens, hearing them has a whole new meaning to me.
