The sunrise of Wednesday, May 4, 1977 was mostly refracted light ... nimbostratus clouds racing northward ... warm ... around 70 degrees, humid with dew points approaching the air temperature and tropical depression-type south-southeasterly winds, gusting frequently in the 20 to 30 m.p.h. range.
Danger from Weather felt near.
It's my day off as a firefighter/EMT in the KC,MO. Fire Department. Around 11:30 a.m., I pick up a friend from her apartment just blocks south of tornado-famed Ruskin Heights to run some errands.
In LINN County KS, thunderstorms rapidly become severe as they approach southwestern CASS County, MO..
As the storms cross the state line, the first in a series of strong tornadoes over western Missouri that day touches down around 11:45 a.m. in a farm field about 5 miles southeast of DREXEL.
While sitting in the car in the parking lot of the Truman Corners shopping center in GRANDVIEW, I watched the dark-bottomed nimbo-type cloud cover racing northeastward - noting a general darkening of the cloud cover south-southwest.
I switched the AM radio from the country/news station (WDAF '61 Country') off station to "hear the lightning (static)." It's a crude but effective way to monitor nearby storm development (The old U.S. Weather Bureau had a "Sferics (static) Unit" in the early 1950's.).
Tornadic static sounds like a dozen people with big gravel-filled buckets randomly but constantly pouring the contents onto a tin roof.
Just as we are leaving the shopping center's parking lot, the tornado warning for CASS County is broadcast.
In mutual agreement - equipped only with a portable 4-channel radio scanner, a mobile Citizen's Band radio and a cheap, 35mm camera with 3 pictures left on the roll, we head south to try and intercept the storm.
The twister alternates from F-2 to F-3 intensity as it skipped perpendicular to state highway Missouri (M)-2, destroying and/or damaging more than a dozen homes and outbuildings. .
On U.S. 71 south of the city of BELTON and with light traffic, I decide to push the fire-engine red 1972 Cutlass a bit past the posted speed limit.
Even with the overcast, the darkening sky ahead foretold the storm's location.
South of PECULIAR, an outflow or gust front reveals itself, so I decide it best to pull onto the highway shoulder and allow it's passage.
The thunderstorm supercell with the semi-rain-wrapped tornado move over U.S. 71 just northwest of the county seat of HARRISONVILLE and skirts the north city limits of HARRISONVILLE toward Highway M-291.
On the south side of a rural road just west of M-291, the tornado strikes and heavily damages several homes, then crosses the highway and takes off the top of a barn.
In bright sunshine and with the darkness of the storm in the proper position ... to our left and ahead ... we exit U.S. 71 onto northbound M-291 in HARRISONVILLE.
At the north city limits, the cloud cover returns and ahead we see leaning utility poles, then the damaged homes and barn.
I pull east onto the rural road just long enough to photograph the barn and listen to some bewildered livestock bleating loudly.
The farmhouse- about 50 feet east of the barn- has only superficial damage.
With rescuers having already arrived at the damaged homes, we continued north on M-291.
A short distance north of the damage and even though we are behind the tornado itself, we run into torrential rain.
It is raining so hard I have to turn the AM radio up to almost full volume and
with the windshield wipers running full speed, a top speed of only 25 to 30 m.p.h. on the 50 m.p.h. highway seemed prudent.
The tornado continues on a more northeasterly track now, paralleling the north-south Highway M-7.
Now a well- established F-3 multi-vortex, it continued to roll over northeastern CASS County land, damaging and/or destroying farm homes and outbuildings as it neared the southwestern city limit of PLEASANT HILL.
On an anticipated mutual-aid response, several units from the Northwestern Cass Fire Protection District (now called "South Metro") station in RAYMORE stage on the eastbound lane of M-58 highway about a mile west of town.
As we arrive at the intersection of M-291 and M-58 highways, the torrential rain suddenly becomes a light shower - then ceases altogether. As we head east on M-58, we have yet to see so much as a rotating scud cloud, let alone a funnel.
The tornado is no-doubt rain-wrapped, but was still well ahead of us. I was thinking now of the hosts of that previous weekend's pool party, for they were both employed by the town's school district.
Both the scanning and CB radios were useless, I didn't even know if the tornado was still on the ground, let alone that PLEASANT HILL might be hit.
As we approached the hill into the Big Creek valley west of town, I noticed cars and a NWCFPD fire apparatus parked in the eastbound driving lane.
With no oncoming traffic, I hit the horn and swung out into the westbound lane to pass as one of the firefighters stood on the highway's center line frantically waving his arms trying to warn us of what we already knew was just ahead.
I slowed only a bit as we passed the group, scanning above the treeline as I slowed some more.
At that moment, we see a semi-sunlit mass of clouds swirling horizontally north to south just ahead and to the right, but STILL no discernible funnel.
We cautiously continue on a heading to interception at PLEASANT HILL.
Blowing away parts of homes here and outbuildings there, the tornado crossed the southern city limit of PLEASANT HILL at about 10 minutes after noon.
Moving more north-northeasterly now, the twister crossed Highway M-7 about a half-mile south-southeast of the downtown area and rode along a ridge to the east of M-7, heading for the PLEASANT HILL high and elementary schools.
At that instant- we had slowly entered the dark and foreboding PLEASANT HILL business district.
To this day, my impression was that we had just entered an episode of the 'Twilight Zone.' It was dark ... no lights whatsoever ... and no movement of anyone or anything on M-58 or surrounding streets.
The cloud swirl was over the buildings and trees in front, just to the left of us as we approached M-7.
We sat for a few minutes at the highway intersection and viewed the devastation along the ridge to the east ... tree trunks stripped of all but the largest main branches and structures with various stages of destruction.
I watched the swirling clouds ... now moving west to east to our left ... and only then realized the high school was in that very direction.
As the tornado's main vortex approached the high school, hundred of students and faculty there and at the nearby elementary school had been pre-warned of the tornado and were hunkered-down in their tornado drill positions in the lowest floor hallways.
First to get hit by the tornado was the parking lot on the south side of the high school.
The force of the wind shattered virtually every window in the two-dozen or so cars in the lot, peeled back hoods and trunk lids on some and moved others against each other.
One car flipped over onto another as windows in the main high school building a hundred or so feet away started to shatter and pieces of the buildings exterior and roof began to peel away.
At the gymnasium on the east side, the north and south walls are blown down and portions of the roof fly away.
At this point, a miracle of sorts happens.
The main tornado circulation veers right - through the open athletic fields between the two schools, mangling and blowing away chain-link fences, bending fence posts and light standards to 45-degree angles, but avoiding a direct hit on either school.
(A student at the elementary school at the time has her recollection of the tornado HERE.)
Still, moderate to heavy damage was done to both buildings.
The tornado strengthened slightly north of the schools in a residential area containing Delaware Street, then the vortex continued on for another couple of miles before lifting back into the parent storm near County Road VV.
I fear the worst as we approach the bottom of the hill from the high school and see the damage. I pull the car onto the shoulder and into a large puddle, killing the engine.
KSNW-TV in Wichita is reporting a 2nd southwest-central Kansas town - Macksville - has been struck by a tornado at 2335 CDT Friday night.
