Remembering the May 4 Kansas City tornado outbreak 21 years later
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Saturday marks 21 years since one of the strongest tornadoes to evet hit the Kansas City metro took place.
Winds more than 200 mph ripped through houses, apartments and businesses in communities such as Kansas City, Kansas, and Riverside, Parkville and Liberty, Missouri.
Other tornadoes were reported near Leavenworth and Paola in Kansas, and Harrisonville and Warrensburg in Missouri.
A series of four tornadoes were reported across the Kansas City area, from the supercell thunderstorm which tracked east-northeast across the western and northern sections of the metropolitan area.
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The first of these tornadoes touched down in southern Leavenworth County just before 4 p.m. north of Linwood and south of the Kansas Turnpike, near 198th Street and Woodend Road.
Video showed the F2 tornado crossed the Kansas Turnpike east of the Eastern Toll Booth, and then proceeded northeast to where it lifted south of Basehor. The total track length was six miles, with a width approaching 200 yards at times.
The second tornado touched down just north-northwest of the Kansas Speedway just before 4:30 p.m. This tornado initially produced F0 to F1 damage, but quickly produced an area of very isolated F4 damage to two homes in the area of Parallel Parkway, near Interstate 435.
The tornado grew in width to near 500 yards in KCK, where instances of F3 damage were reported around North 91st Street and Leavenworth Road, and around 84th Terrace north of Leavenworth Road. The latter location was where one fatality was observed.
The tornado continued northeast through Wyandotte County, where another instance of marginal F4 damage was noted near North 79th Street and Cernech Road. Considerable structural damage was noted in this location, along with four 150 foot-tall metal power poles engineered to withstand maximum winds of over 200 mph.
The tornado proceeded to produce F1 to occasional F2 damage up to the Missouri River. Based on air surveys, the tornado passed just north of the power plant in northeast Wyandotte County, skirted along the Missouri River inflicting tree damage on both the Wyandotte and Platte County sides of the river, and eventually crossed east into Platte County near Riverside and Parkville around 4:30 p.m.
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The third tornado touched down in Gladstone, Missouri from a new circulation which formed to the northeast of the one which produced the second tornado, around 4:45 p.m., around the area of North Shady Lane Drive and Northeast Antioch Road. Tree and roof damage accounted for F0 to F1 damage in this area.
“When you think about these types of tornadoes going through Wyandotte County, Platte County, Clay County got some toward William Jewell, it’s amazing that only two people lost their lives because we’ve seen the damage and the damage was extensive,” FOX4 Meteorologist Joe Lauria recalled from that day.
