And Hell Followed with It: Life and Death in a Kansas Tornado

Colossal trees snap like matchsticks. A gigantic orange fireball explodes in the funnel's black core. Horses are sucked up and spit out alive by 200-mile-per-hour winds. These were just a few of the scenes that unfolded on June 8, 1966, when a massive EF-5 tornado cut a 22-mile swath across eastern Kansas and straight through Topeka—Kansas's capital city. When it was over, 16 people were dead, more than 500 were injured, and property damage had reached $100 million, making the tornado the m...