Flyover People
Cheryl Unruh
Originally published 02:32 p.m., July 1, 2008
Updated 02:32 p.m., July 1, 2008
Outsiders sometimes ask me, “What’s there to do in Kansas?
Considering the recent springtime weather, I think I could honestly respond: “Well, we Kansans spend a lot of our time dodging hailstones.”
As of this writing, Emporia has avoided the large hail, but many parts of the state have been pelted with icy stones the size of golf balls, baseballs, even softballs.
This spring our sky has been an overachiever. Day after day, thunderstorms have tumbled across Kansas, throwing hail, dropping rain, and spinning the occasional tornado.
Those twisters have killed residents, smashed barns and homes, and have paid unwelcome visits to a number of places, including Manhattan and Chapman.
Actually, the state has more than the occasional tornado. As of June 16, preliminary reports indicated that Kansas had experienced 172 tornadoes so far in 2008. Our yearly average is 55.
In that June 16 news story, Iowa came in second with 134 twisters; Missouri had 127.
Those yellow, orange and red blobs on the TV weather maps have been out to get us. Each evening, we watched the dancing colors on the radar screen.
We’re certainly getting our money’s worth out of the meteorologists this year.
Nearly every day during the past two months, my Internet browser has displayed a weather alert symbol. Sometimes that red octagon on my screen has announced a thunderstorm warning, sometimes a flash flood watch or a wind advisory.
Weather-wise, Kansas can be an exciting place. But over the years, we’ve been astonished by the weather so many times that anymore, there’s nothing the sky can throw down that will surprise us.
Highway crews can be plowing through a blizzard in Western Kansas and on the same day, Eastern Kansas residents are fighting off of a herd of stampeding tornadoes.
Springtime in the Sunflower State—it is the best of times; it is the worst of times.
Kansas is the poster state for mood swings. There’s that oft-repeated saying around here, “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes … it’ll get worse.”
A stagnant weather pattern? Well, that comes in August when those meteorologists don’t even bother to show up for work. The TV stations replay the same forecast ad nauseam: hot, hazy, humid, 94 degrees.
As for living with the threat of tornadoes, that’s just part of being a Kansan. We take the black funnels in stride. There’s a certain amount of pride and bravado that comes from living on this land where danger hangs in the air.
One June evening when the sirens sounded in Emporia, if there had been a visitor from California here, he might have thought we were under an earthquake warning because people rushed out onto their front lawns.
Outside, we gawked at the sky and talked on cell phones. Of course, instead, we all should’ve been racing down the basement stairs and diving under a sturdy table.
Many of us want to watch tornadoes and photograph them. However, the odds of actually being in same place at the same time as a tornado aren’t all that great. And some of those tornadoes are rain-wrapped, shrouded, and therefore not visible.
Simon, my e-mail friend in England, once asked, “Have you seen a twister? Do flyover people grow up with this ever-present danger (‘Sorry I’m late for school, Miss; we hit some trouble and my homework’s in Texas’)—or is it very rare?”
Yes, Simon, I’ve seen seven or eight tornadoes in my lifetime, but have never lost my homework, or anything else, to a twister.
Living on the plains though, we take our chances.
Our landscape and location invite the massive thunderstorms, the hail, the tornadoes—and all we can do is ride out each storm.
A Kansan gets used to living with the Jekyll-and-Hyde skies. Storms are just part of our nature.
“Flyover People’ is online at www.flyoverpeople.net.
F Cheryl Unruh can be reached at cheryl@flyoverpeople.net.
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