Nature’s fury seen up close

LAHARPE — Marilyn Boyd has lived all her life in Kansas and had never seen a tornado.
Until Friday.
The former LaHarpe mayor and city councilwoman was returning from a trip to a doctor in Nebraska to her home in LaHarpe when she was caught up in a series of storms peppering northeast Kansas.
By the time she reached Olathe, the rain was at its fiercest, coming down in sheets, but with brightening skies on the horizon.
“It’s getting better, right?” she asked herself, as the son began to peek through the clouds.
Wrong.
The excitement started between Osawatomie and Paola on U.S. 169.
Boyd was cruising at highway speed, when she saw a car stopped on the highway — in the passing lane.
“I looked ahead, and there was the Highway Patrol and sheriff’s cars and some other vehicles,” she recalled. “I’m looking in my rear view mirror, wondering what’s going on, and then I noticed the wind blowing in front of me.”
A glance to her right revealed the cause of the commotion.
“Right there in the tree line in the ditch was a tornado,” she said.
Boyd slammed on the brakes, slid to a stop, and wondered what to do next.
“I’d always heard if you’re in a car and you see a tornado, you’re supposed to hit the ditch,” Boyd said. “Well, there was no way I was going to do that.”
Even more ominous was when Boyd realized the storm was headed toward the highway.
“It all happened so fast,” she recalled. “It was right there. Then it seemed to lift up as it went across the highway, and went to the other side. I was so shocked, I couldn’t even function.”
At its closest, Boyd figured the twister was within two car lengths of her vehicle, although her car shook just a tad in the ferocious wind, much less than she figured it would.
It was about then that Boyd realized that it wasn’t a single tornado, either. She saw at least two vertices, and perhaps more, in the rapidly moving storm.
As the storm continued barreling away from the highway, Boyd grabbed her phone and began snapping pictures and a short video.
“I got some, but they weren’t very clear because I was shaking so bad,” she said.
The near miss was a blessing, Boyd said, noting the twister was still in its infancy when she saw it. The storm steadily grew in size and strength to the point it demolished several houses and caused some injuries by the time it crossed into Missouri.
“I saw what looked like leaves being blown in it,” she said. “That’s when I realized it wasn’t leaves, but actual tree limbs.”
As an aside, Boyd noted she wasn’t listening to weather reports on the radio, because she was instead listening to one of her favorite gospel groups, the Booth Brothers.
And the song she was listening to when she saw the tornado? “Jesus Saves.”
Like most native Kansans, Boyd had had a lifelong curiosity with tornadoes, wondering if, or when, she’d ever see one.
“I’d always wanted to see one, as long as I knew it wasn’t going to do any damage,” she said. “This one was way too close.”