The Potawatomi Revisited

In the misty backwaters of Indian legend, a fierce prairie tornado struck the Potawatomi tribe encamped along the Kansas River. The dead were buried on and around the 250-foot hill that is now called Burnett's Mound, on the southwestern edge of Topeka, and the Great Spirit was enjoined to protect the place forever from the twister's deadly cone.* Topeka's immunity to catastrophic tornadoes had itself become a legend until 7:13 one evening last week, when most citizens were at dinner. By the time they would have been clearing the table, 15 were dead and 300 injured, and a good part of the city (pop. 127,500) lay in ruins.

The tornado struck directly at Burnett's Mound. Then, in contrast with the hop-and-skip progression of most twisters, it furrowed an almost machine-straight path two to four blocks wide through the heart of the city and into the northeastern suburbs. Houses were blown into rubble, cars blasted into junk. All but one of the 18 major buildings at Washburn University, several of them with heavy stone walls, were destroyed or seriously damaged.

In midtown Topeka, one of the few large structures left standing for blocks around was a ten-story insurance building audaciously emblazoned "A Refuge in Time of Storm"--yet it too was gutted, and may have to be razed. Buses at the city depot were piled one atop the other like crushed ants. At the airport, 15 light planes lay scattered, stamped flat. Though the state capital lay outside the storm's path, the pressure shattered windows and smashed a hole the size of a locomotive in the dome. Total damage: at least $100 million.

A 10-to 15-minute alarm, sounded over civil defense sirens and broadcast over radio and TV, unquestionably held down the death toll. Most people had time to scurry for refuge. Residents of the luxurious Huntington Park apartment complex found safety in the basement sauna room as the entire second floor was being ripped away. At the Circus Tavern, pool players dove under tables, emerging safely minutes later from ten feet of debris. The legend of Burnett's Mound disappeared into the funnel. "I never did think it was true," said one tearful resident as he picked amidst the rubble of his home. "But I sure wanted it to be."

* As described, in an old Potawatomi song: "The grass is moving, the trees are moving, the whole earth is moving."

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