Kansas tornado’s reach is farther than thought; 1,000-plus buildings affected
Matthew Kelly
ANDOVER, Kansas — More than 1,000 buildings were affected when a strong tornado swept through Andover on Friday evening. Search and rescue operations were continuing Saturday, officials said in a noon briefing.
As the sun rose over the ravaged community, local emergency officials found a more widespread path of destruction than was estimated earlier.
“We now know that our damage path extended approximately 3 1/2 to four miles to the north of where we believed it to have ended last night,” Andover Deputy Fire Chief Mike Roosevelt said.
Assistance continued to pour into the community throughout the day.
By noon, the tally had reached more than 200 emergency responders representing 30 agencies.
Despite the widespread destruction, a preliminary survey turned up no fatalities and no critical injuries.
On Saturday, emergency workers were going through a second, more thorough search to make sure they hadn’t missed anybody.
“We consider ourselves to be about at the 70% level of having gone through every location twice,” Roosevelt said.
Officials are not letting volunteers into the affected residential areas until that secondary search is completed.
US 54, the extension of Kellogg heading east, opened eastbound lanes in the afternoon. Westbound lanes remained closed from 159th on the west to Santa Fe Lake Road on the east, until further notice. All other major roads through Andover are open.
About 15,000 Evergy customers lost electricty during the tornado. The company had restored power to all but 1,200 customers by 10 a.m.
Any broken gas and water lines were shut off and by noon there were no known active leaks.
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