Tornado 20 years ago leaves marks on communities

May 3—May 4, 2003, was a muggy day in Southwest Missouri. It just felt like a day when something weird could happen with the weather — and did it ever.

Twenty years ago, four area communities and hundreds of lives were changed forever when a tornado outbreak, now one of the largest in the nation's history, struck at the hearts of the communities of Franklin and Kansas, and Carl Junction, Stockton and Pierce City in Missouri.

—Dozens of homes were shredded, and schools were damaged to the point where the final three weeks of Carl Junction's 2002-2003 school year were canceled as a tornado that hit the ground north of Chetopa, in Labette County, Kansas, sliced diagonally to the northeast across Cherokee County, Kansas, slammed into the tiny state-line community of Smithfield and then sliced through the northwest corner of Carl Junction. Three people were killed in rural Cherokee County and two were killed in Smithfield in Jasper County in the tornado that was rated an F2 or F3 in intensity along most of its path.

That twister eventually lifted back in the sky north of Oronogo.

—Seven people were killed, including one in Pierce City as a tornado cut a 45-mile path through Newton, Lawrence, Christian and Greene counties.

The tornado resulted in the deaths of two people north of Monett, two people north of Marionville, one person north of Clever and one person in Battlefield.

Pierce City's historic downtown was almost wiped out.

—The tiny village of Franklin, Kansas, was decimated by a tornado that traveled from Neosho County, Kansas, across Crawford County, Kansas and finally lifted near Liberal in Missouri.

This tornado peaked at F4 status as it crossed Crawford County and entered Franklin. Four people were killed along its 35-mile track.

—The same storm that spawned the Franklin tornado quickly spun up another tornado that traveled 83 miles from near Liberal, across Barton County to Cedar County with a rating of F2.

That twister devastated downtown Stockton with F3 strength and killed two people in that small lakeside community.

A total of 25 people were killed in Southeast Kansas and Southwest Missouri by the tornadoes of May 4, 2003.

Tornado swarm hits

Many people who went through the storms said they could tell that the weather was getting ready to do something all day on that Sunday.

Tom Harding still lives in the home at the corner of West Bishop and Broadway streets in Carl Junction where he and his wife rode out the twister.

"It was a gloomy-looking day. They had forecast some probable tornadoes in the area that day ... and they were saying maybe one was headed toward Carl Junction," Harding said. "The tornado sirens started blowing, and I was like OK, here we go. It just had that look and feel in the air that day. You don't have a day like that often."

At the same time that Harding and his wife were taking cover, Tracie Skaggs, her husband Derek and their three children and pets were taking cover in their home closer to the center of Carl Junction south of Pennell Street.

Skaggs said her home sustained damage that was missed by the initial inspections, damage that is causing her and her husband headaches 20 years later.

In Arma, Kansas, immediately to the north of Franklin, Phyllis Bitner, who grew up in Franklin, was huddling with her husband in their designated shelter.

"We heard it go over and we knew how bad it was," she said of the tornado. We had some minor damage, so we hopped in the car and ran to Franklin, and it was just stunning the first few moments. It was unrecognizable. Franklin is a small town, but I couldn't even get my bearings of where I was. Everything was just gone."

RebuildingThe reconstruction started almost immediately for people whose homes were damaged by the storm, despite the rain and hail that hit immediately after the tornado passed and the days after.

Harding said his homeowners insurance paid him $30,000 and that he put in another $5,000 to fix their home the way they wanted.

Skaggs had been a volunteer in community development and on Carl Junction's newly created planning and zoning committee, so it seemed natural that the mayor at the time, Jim Wisdom, would tap her to lead the effort to rebuild after the tornado.

Skaggs said they established a theme for their reconstruction effort: "We were neighbors, Now we are family."

Bitner said she and others who held Franklin dear to their heart started a not-for-profit organization called the Franklin Community Council Inc., and led the effort to apply for money and resources to rebuild their community.

The group led the effort to build a community center to replace the one that was erased by the tornado.

They rented out that center for about 10 years before that burden became too large and they decided to convert the building to the Miner's Hall Museum that still stands today.

"In a way, it really brought a lot of people together and out of the woodwork, a lot of people we hadn't been in touch with or hadn't seen in years," Bitner said.