Plains states brace for twister outbreak

By The Associated Press

Published: June 6, 2008

WICHITA, Kan. — Tornadoes dropped onto the Great Plains on Thursday after forecasters had warned of a potentially historic outbreak, causing some damage and spooking a pair of circus elephants in Kansas that escaped their enclosure.

The storm apparently frightened the animals, which wandered around the town of WaKeeney, said Trego County Sheriff Richard Schneider. One of the animals remained on the loose Thursday evening.

The other entered a backyard less than a mile from the fairgrounds and was blocked off by fire trucks until trainers could coax it onto a truck, Schneider said.

At least four tornadoes touched down in western and central Kansas, where residents nervously braced for what National Weather Service forecasters called a potentially historic outbreak of tornadoes.

A tornado in Clay County in north-central Kansas destroyed a home, damaged several other buildings, toppled trees and left many in dark, police said. Storms also damaged roofs at the Pratt County airport in south-central Kansas, officials said.

Wichita State University canceled evening classes.

In a strongly worded statement Thursday, the weather service warned that parts of Kansas could see hail bigger than baseballs and "a few strong to violent long-lived tornadoes.”

Computer forecasting models for Thursday resembled those on June 8, 1974, when 39 tornadoes raked the southern Plains and killed 22 people.

"The highest risk is central Kansas and the entire central portion of the country,” said Brad Mickelson, a weather service meteorologist.

Singled out as at high risk were Omaha; Topeka, Kan.; Des Moines, Iowa; and south-central Minnesota, he said. The regions at risk of severe thunderstorms stretched from northern Texas to Minnesota and Wisconsin.

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