27 April 2023
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – On April 26, 1991, Andover’s only siren didn’t sound as a large tornado moved into the city. A police officer had to use lights and sirens to drive through town to alert residents to seek shelter from the storm.
For many that lived through that storm, the need for an updated emergency plan became clear. Before that day, the most recent was the 1958 tornado that struck El Dorado.
“It really wasn’t in recent memory. It is very easy for natural disasters to fade from the public memory,” said Dr. Jay Price, WSU Department of History professor and chair. “The tornado was a wake-up call.”
Before April 1991, Butler County didn’t have an official emergency management department or director.
“Well, I know the person who served in that function previously was the sheriff in Butler County, and he’d been pushing for a number of years,” said Randy Duncan, former Sedgwick County Emergency Management director.
“And then, by the following year, 1992, they had actually, the Board of County Commissioners, established the standalone department,” said Keri Korthals, Butler County Emergency Management director.
From one-man crews, the county created two volunteer teams to assist in the field.
“Between those two, we’ve got approximately 45 volunteers. It was several years in the making to get a volunteer cadre like that assigned,” Korthals said.
Another improvement is developing a more robust partnership with Sedgwick County.
“You know, on a day-to-day operation, we are always helping each other, each other’s jurisdiction, so the relationships were already built. If there’s anything that impacts them that exceeds their resources, our folks will go over there and help them and vice versa,” said Stimson.
Another community taking note was former Haysville Mayor Tim Norton. He says the Andover tornado prompted his community to finalize an action plan in late 1998, just four months before Haysville suffered a devastating F4 tornado of its own.
“The biggest thing it did was it gave us a listing of all the resources that we could call on. It was comforting to know that we had those connections, that, that particular night,” Norton said.
Since last year’s tornado, pandemic-related funds allowed for the creation of a new emergency operations center (EOC) in Butler County. A major step in an ever-evolving field.
“We don’t want to just react to disasters when they happen even though we can’t necessarily prevent a disaster. To know that we’ve done a lot of that legwork ahead of time. Essentially, it’s kind of the big picture place,” said Korthals.
The key takeaways and lessons learned across several agencies ultimately created new systems that have saved lives.
Another lesson learned from the most recent tornado in 2022 was the need to rely on more paper materials. Folks with no power working to assess the damage were not aware of the multiple resources referenced to them on social media.