Wichita-area tornado survivors want a siren after EF-3 twister struck without warning

Dale Angleton said he had just heard the “all-clear” from a Wichita TV news station when his nephew Ron Bradford burst through the front door.

“Tornado!” Bradford said.

It was the only warning Angleton would receive Friday night before a house on 31st Street that has been in his family since 1972 collapsed on top of him. Bradford grabbed his uncle and pushed him into a bedroom, where the two men hit the floor right as the tornado struck the house.

“If it weren’t for my nephew, I wouldn’t be here,” Angleton said. “I damn sure didn’t hear a siren.”

A check of Sedgwick County records shows the rural neighborhood where the EF-3 tornado first struck is outside of the range of the county’s emergency tornado siren system by more than 2,000 feet.

Text message alerts didn’t go out until after the tornado had already toppled at least a dozen homes just outside the Wichita city limits.

“The only thing we heard was the explosion,” Bradford said. “I know people say it’s supposed to sound like a freight train, but it sounded like a bomb.”

Angleton said that needs to change in response to Friday’s tornado. The neighborhood at 31st Street South and 137th Street East — less than a mile outside the Wichita city limits in Gypsum Township on a rural stretch of east Sedgwick County between McConnell Air Force Base and Flint Hills National Golf Club — was narrowly missed by an F5 tornado in 1991.

The nearest siren is over a mile away at Wichita Southeast High School. The siren has a range of 4,000 feet — 2,072 feet short of the Gypsum neighborhood.

“We can hear the game speakers, but we can’t hear the tornado sirens,” Angleton said. “That’s not right. I told the commissioners when they came out here, but with some of them I could tell it went in one ear and out the other.”

Angleton said he understands tornado sirens cost money and in a county of more than 1,000 square miles, much of that farmland, it wouldn’t make sense to put a tornado siren on every corner. But in his neighborhood, which has several dozen houses and a mobile home park, he said the cost for the county would be easily justified.

“It can’t cost more than one human life,” he said. “But it seems like that’s what it’s going to take. Someone’s going to have to die for the county to put up more sirens. This is ridiculous.”

Commissioner Jim Howell, whose district includes the Gypsum Township, said he agrees with Angleton. The Sedgwick County budget includes funding for up to five new sirens each year, and Howell said one of them should be placed near 31st and 137th.

“Since we have indicated that we’re going to be adding five sirens on this latest plan, and five districts, I would like to see the commissioners have an opportunity to help pick locations for our districts,” Howell said.

“I know my district very well, and I know where people live, I know where the risks are. I think some of the locations (where sirens have been installed) have been influenced by wealth.”

Howell said more affluent neighborhoods typically have basements or tornado shelters, better insurance and better access to more warning systems, such as television, internet, weather radios and cell phone alerts.

“There are other people in my district that don’t even speak English, who have no health insurance, have no idea what’s going on,” Howell said. “I want to place sirens in more impoverished areas where they have less ability to help themselves in an emergency. Tornado sirens would be a big help for people who don’t speak English because they’re not in any particular language.”

Sedgwick County has 152 tornado sirens. Most are concentrated in Wichita. A new electronic speaker station costs $25,979 and lasts up to 20 years. The more traditional mechanical rotating sirens cost $17,213, have a longer range and last more than 40 years on average, according to county documents.

The siren at Southeast is an electronic speaker station, with the shorter range and life span.

Sedgwick County Emergency Management director Julie Stimson acknowledged the county outdoor warning system has flaws. She said the county does not have a population density formula that triggers where to place new sirens.

“There is no magic number,” Stimson said. “It is really a cultural-based decision based on our populated areas and managing expectations that these outdoor warning sirens are meant for those who are outdoors.

“So if we have folks in homes, we need to make sure we communicate the message; they still need to have alternative ways to receive the information. . . . That multi-layered approach is really critical. Sirens is a piece of that, and that is something that we’re looking at.”

Hit first, hit hardest

The Gypsum Township rural neighborhood was the starting line for a 12.75-pile path of destruction Friday night.

But it has gotten little news coverage compared with the more affluent, densely populated Andover, a Wichita suburb located across the county line in Butler County.

Steve Upchurch, who lives just outside the city limits on 137th Street but identifies as a Wichitan, said it feels like the area hit first by the tornado has been forgotten.

“You hear a lot about Andover, Andover, Andover,” he said. “But it wasn’t just Andover. We got hit, too, and we got hit hard.”

Kathy Moore, a 65-year-old woman from the Gypsum neighborhood on 137th Street, suffered the most severe physical injuries. Hers was one of the first houses damaged by the tornado.

County officials said it was ripped from its foundation and rotated 180-degrees before collapsing in on Moore and her husband, Jim. Jim Moore injured his arm while trying to free his wife from the debris. She remained in the hospital Wednesday.

The most up-to-date reports say the EF-3 twister damaged at least 35 structures in Sedgwick County and 180 in Butler County. The tornado’s maximum width was 440 yards, Stimson said.

No deaths have been reported. At least six people sought treatment at Wichita hospitals for injuries.

The most severe injuries came from residents in the 31st and 137th neighborhood, county officials have confirmed.

“There were three injuries directly related to the tornado, two of those in Sedgwick County,” Stimson said Wednesday.

“We had probably some of the worst damage and the most injuries in Sedgwick County,” Howell said. “And they had the least amount of notice. I mean, they really didn’t know what was coming. At least Andover had time to seek shelter.”

Like family

Angleton sold Bradford the house on 31st Street seven weeks ago.

The tornado ripped off its roof, peeled off its siding and mangled its walls. Outside, it snapped mature trees, flipped pickup trucks and tossed a fishing boat into a vacant field as if it were a child’s bath toy.

“I would have never sold it to him if I knew this was going to happen,” Angleton said.

Bradford said he’s coping with the tragedy through humor. He’s staying in a camper on the front lawn beside the shredded remnants of his house.

“It’s one day at a time for me,” Bradford said. “It’s always one day at a time, unless you’ve got a million dollars in your pocket. I don’t.”

“If you don’t laugh about it, you go the other way. And what good does that do?” Bradford said.

“We’re blessed. Totally blessed. Do you know why we’re all happy?” Bradford said. “Because why be sad?”

Angleton said he’s more torn up about the loss of his animals than property.

“It’s just stuff,” he said. “Stuff don’t mean anything. Maybe to some people, but not me. My animals mean more to me than stuff.”

Angleton said he lost two calves and dozens of chickens and ducks in the tornado. He gave away the chickens that survived to a neighbor.

“I didn’t know I had so many wonderful neighbors,” Bradford said. “I have some very super neighbors.”

Unlike Andover, which closely guarded its buildings and residents after the tornado struck, the Sedgwick County neighborhood at 31st and 137th remained publicly accessible in the immediate aftermath of the storm.

That allowed volunteers to flock to the area to offer assistance. Angleton, Bradford and Upchurch all said they were impressed by how quickly first responders arrived on scene and how helpful volunteers were over the weekend.

Bradford even captured a cell phone photo that shows how quickly the Wichita Fire Department responded, arriving in front of his house while the tornado was still in the air.

“Really, it’s just amazing how it’s brought people together,” Upchurch said. “Selfless people, a lot of people offering help, jumping right in and helping clear things. There were over a hundred volunteers, friends, family members, neighbors.”

He said workers from Dirt Lab LLC and volunteers from Andover Baptist Church and Augusta Life Church brought out more than 100 people to help with the cleanup on Saturday and Sunday.

“Them people took care of us like they were our family,” Angleton said.

This story was originally published May 5, 2022 at 4:55 AM.