Monday, May 28, 2012

La Crosse police chief: 2 businesses destroyed, one heavily damaged by tornado

The tornado that touched down in the Rush County town of La Crosse on Friday night destroyed two businesses and caused major damage to a third, a city official said Saturday.

?Two were completely wiped out, and I?d say the third is probably repairable,? La Crosse Police Chief Jason Reece said.

He said the tornado, which touched down near Fifth and Elm, also destroyed some campers at a nearby mobile home park. He said no one was injured.

The damage was largely confined to an area along Fifth Street in the southern third of the city, Reece said. It?s the only street in the town of 1,342 that has a stoplight. La Crosse, the Rush County seat, is about 25 miles south of Hays and I-70.

The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., logged 30 reports of tornadoes in Kansas on Friday night, many of them in Rush County. Others were reported in the neighboring counties of Ellis, Ness and Russell.

One home was destroyed in the city of Russell, and several others were damaged, according to the Russell County Emergency Management office. One woman in Russell suffered minor injuries.

La Crosse resident Mary Urban said she tried to get to the hospital where she works Friday night but was turned back by law enforcement officials and the storm damage.

?It?s crazy,? she said of the damage. ?The car wash is gone. The old lumber yard, it got messed up.?

A grocery store also sustained damage, she said.

There were so many reports of tornadoes near La Crosse over the course of the evening, she said, ?it felt like we were surrounded.?

Urban lives five blocks north of Fifth Street, and she remembers hearing a noisy rumble for a few minutes even from the shelter of the basement.

?It just got really loud,? she said. ?That must have been the tornado.?

Contributing: Associated Press

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