Tornado came like a whisper for St. Nick’s kindergarten teacher

Students will never forget field day visit to the ‘Big Well’ in Greensburg the day of the storm

By David Myers

Southwest Kansas Register

The children in Nancy Taylor’s kindergarten class at St. Nicholas School in Kinsley recently experienced a field trip they will never, ever forget.

Just hours after visiting “the World’s Largest Hand-Dug Well” in Greensburg May 4, the town was nearly completely destroyed in the devastating tornado.

“The big well had doors on the side, and when I saw it on the news, the doors was teared off,” kindergarten student Carrie Bishop said.

“There were a lot of steps down there,” Rylee Gleason said of the well. “I bet people got tired from going down those stairs.”

Prior to the trip, when Taylor asked one student what a well was, the student had replied, “It’s like a dolphin, only bigger.”

After their visit, the students were driven home to Kinsley, safe from the storm. But for Taylor, a resident of Greensburg, and her son, Brandon, the tornado came like a whisper, the only indication of its presence being popping ears, and a “ping” sound followed by glass breaking.

“I wondered if a picture fell, and I thought, ‘Oh, no! What broke?’” Taylor spoke to the SKR from a cell phone in Greensburg where she was sorting through the remains of her property.

Moments after the tornado struck, the two opened the closet door where they had ridden out the storm in the basement.

“We saw there was water coming from the ceiling,” she said. “I said, ‘Oh, man! We’ve got a leak!’ I set my little trash can under the leak, and Brandon went up the stairs.”

Taylor’s husband, Kenton, was in Nebraska when the storm struck.

“We heard those radio alerts going off, but I didn’t think anything of it because we had been through it so many times before,” Nancy Taylor said. “A friend of mine called from Kinsley and said, ‘I hope you’re in the basement, because it’s coming, and it’s bad.’”

Once in the basement, the two got into a closet with a couple of chairs, some pillows and the weather alert radio.

“We heard them say it was five, six miles from Greensburg. I thought how many times this had happened. But then it got really quiet.”

That’s when their ears popped, and when they heard the “ping” followed by the sound of glass breaking.

“There was no roar or loud noise. That’s all we heard. Maybe it’s a good thing. If I’d have heard a loud roar it would have really scared me.”

Moments later, when Brandon reached the top of the stairs, “he said the house wasn’t there. When I got up there, all that was left was a small, cement slab of our steps. Everything was just down.

“The sky was flashing and it was so cold. I kept thinking we’ll just go down the street and stay with my friend. No one realized that it was the whole town. We thought it was just our edge of town.”

Meanwhile, Greensburg resident Steve Kirk climbed into his vehicle to see what he could do to help others. Moments later, he, the Taylors, and six others found themselves in Kirk’s vehicle maneuvering their way out of town. The family is now staying in nearby Bucklin.

When asked if they would rebuild, Taylor gave a tired sigh, and replied, “Right now we’re just going day by day. There have to be inspections; they have to check the foundation. It’s just too early. We don’t know yet. We have to figure out what we’ll do each day.”

One fond memory Taylor carries with her from that same terrible Friday, came when she took pictures of her kindergartners not only by the well, but also sitting around their teacher’s house for a quick treat of ice cream before heading back to Kinsley, several happy kindergartners, delighted to have seen their teacher’s home.