A couple in Springfield, Mo., found two photographs while doing yard work: photos that belong to Jack and Rayma Redden, who live in Picher, Okla. — 93 miles away.
The Reddens’ home was destroyed when a large tornado shredded a 20-block section of Picher Saturday evening. The Reddens and five relatives huddled in closets and escaped with a few scratches.
Robyn and Alan Bates of Springfield found the photos stuck together back-to-back, wrapped in shredded photo-album plastic and spattered with bits of mud and leaves. One shows the Reddens wearing matching sweaters on Christmas Day 1971, and a young girl holding a doll on Easter 1972.
Other residents in southwest Missouri reported finding canceled checks, photos and other storm-related items from Picher.
This reminds me of ranchers in the Flint Hills of Kansas, who told me they were finding items from Andover in their pastures years after the deadly tornado of April 26, 1991.
It’s been a cool spring in Kansas – and if you don’t want to take our word for it, believe the wheat.
Only about 19 percent of the state’s wheat crop has now headed, according to the Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service. That’s well below the 61 percent average for this late in the season.
Not surprisingly, the crop’s condition is suffering somewhat. The agency rates 56 percent of the crop as fair, poor or very poor, and only 44 percent as good or excellent.
Strong storms – including the threat of more tornadoes – are expected again in southeast Kansas and northeast Oklahoma later today.
The death toll from Saturday’s storms is now up to 23, officials say: 7 in Picher, Okla., 14 in western Missouri just across the border and 2 in Georgia.
The Storm Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has placed the southeast corner of Kansas – along with the eastern half of Oklahoma and portions of Missouri, Texas and Arkansas – in a moderate risk for severe weather.
An area of Kansas essentially east of the Kansas Turnpike is in a slight risk for severe weather.