Thanks, KWCH

This morning, President Bush declared the Greensburg area a Federal Disaster area. FEMA will be moving in.

There’s talk of bringing in those FEMA trailers for people to live in.

A trailer is a nice gesture, I suppose. But these folks had brick homes torn away from their shoulders. A trailer (which, in tornado alley, is a ticket to Oz), is a shelter, but not exactly a comforting and sturdy shelter to a nervous tornado victim.

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Yesterday, tornadoes, torrential rains, hail. Flooding is widespread across the central part of Kansas.

A tornado damaged a number of homes in Bennington in North Central Kansas. Salina has flooding from six inches of rain last night.

More severe storms are likely today and tomorrow.

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Stories, photos, video from the Wichita Eagle.

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Last night, KWCH-TV out of Wichita was my primary source for breaking news. KWCH was on the air for 27 hours straight. They did not break for other programming; they did not break for commercials.

For most of the evening, they had at least two, and often three, areas of tornadic storms. These storms stayed alive for miles, passing through county after county.

Meteorologists Merril Teller, Ross Janssen, and Mark Larson explained the situation clearly, kept us updated on the dozens of warnings. Roger Cornish anchored all day and all evening. The entire KWCH team (there have to be a lot of people behind the scenes) did an incredible job of keeping Kansans safe. Kudos to them.