Tornado Slams Kansas Town, Injuries Reported

Jack Phillips
6/27/2018
Updated:
6/27/2018

Eight people were injured when a tornado hit a small town in eastern Kansas on Tuesday night, according to reports.

The tornado touched down in the Greenwood County town of Eureka, located 60 miles east of Wichita. The Greenwood County Emergency Management said that the town took a “direct hit.”

One of the injured people is in critical condition, KWCH-TV reported.

The station reported that crews went through the town and searched the debris and marked buildings.

Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer declared a state of disaster emergency in Greenwood County and activated the state emergency operations center in Topeka, according to The Weather Channel.

The Kansas Department of Transportation also closed U.S. 54 from Flint Hills Road to Kansas Highway 99 because of tornado damage.

The National Weather Service in Wichita at 7:19 p.m. local time on Tuesday issued a tornado warning, about two minutes before the twister hit Eureka.

KWCH-TV reported that residents had virtually no time to take shelter once the tornado touched down.

Tornadoes also hit Illinois, Missouri, and other states on Tuesday.

A tornado hit Manhattan, Illinois, on Tuesday evening. Some people said that tornado sirens didn’t go off until the middle of the tornado.

“I consider it very fortunate, because at the time the park had a softball game going on and everybody was able to get to shelter. So nobody was injured and I consider that a positive,” Manhattan Mayor James Doyle told CBS Chicago. “We consider Manhattan very fortunate that we survived without any major damage or injuries.”

Twelve buildings, he said, suffered minor damage.

A tornado hit Lake Lotawana, in Missouri’s Jackson County, on Tuesday, carving a 3.4-mile path that damaged trees and took out power lines, the Kansas City Star reported. The town is located east of Kansas City.

“The neighbor next door said sirens went on after the tornado came through,” Patty Corkran, a Lake Lotawana resident, said.

There were no reported injuries in the town, the paper reported.

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Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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