ANDOVER, Kan. — An EF-3 tornado ripped through Andover, Kansas, Friday destroying many homes in the Reflection Lake neighborhood.
“I was hoping nobody was dead, and everyone was okay," Ella Quinn said.
The National Weather Service rated the tornado an EF-3 because wind speeds were greater than 136 miles per hour.
"I didn’t even think I was going to walk out to my house, I thought I was going to walk out to my yard it was that intense," Bob Hall, who lives in the neighborhood with his family, said. "A lot of loud noise, you could hear glass shards, the house vibrating, not something I want to do twice, I promise."
Hall took us inside his home to see the damage firsthand. Windows were shattered, glass was all over the floor and shot into the walls. The drywall also had cracks in it from the tornado shifting the house off its foundation.
“It was just really scary for us because we’ve never been through that before, and we’re just all freaking out," Ava Quinn said.
The Hall family took shelter in a downstairs bathroom, piling on top of each other in the bathtub.
“We got down there, and I was able to see it out the back window, and when I started seeing debris, I had everyone in the bathroom already, I went in and shut the door," Hall said.
After five straight minutes of terror, the tornado passed, leaving a trail of destruction that families are left cleaning up.
“What do we do first..we hammer it, one step at a time," Hall said.
The Andover Police Department has a found property station set up, so residents in town can stop by the department to see if any of their lost items have turned up.
