Melanie Morgan, former Kansas City radio/TV reporter (KMBC-TV, KY 102, KUDL-AM and FM):
I have been glued to my television...watching the extended coverage of the tornado that struck the tiny town of Greenburg, Kansas. The shocked, dazed and injured broke my heart.  We are still learning the details, but the Hell that they are living is the same that my family experienced 50 years ago in my hometown of Kansas City, Missouri when the most dangerous and killing kind of tornado upended homes and business, slamming them back to the ground. The F-5 twister, which was really two tornadoes that came together into one giant funnel cloud, extinguished life without regard.

Lora Frounfelter Jones, Ruskin High School 1961 graduate:
Our family of 6, and our dog, survived the 1957 Ruskin Tornado.  We lived on 110th Street, 2 blocks directly behind Ruskin High School, right in the heart of the tornado path.  I was 14, oldest of 4 daughters, and getting ready to graduate from Ruskin Jr. High the next evening.  My graduation dress was neatly lying across the back of the living room couch waiting to be ironed.  Our whole family was watching TV together when the weatherman broke in to warn us about a possible tornado.  They were giving the usual instructions on what windows to open & close and how to take shelter.  My dad was busy doing all that, as my mom gathered us girls and our dog up to go across the street to our neighbor's basement.  Many neighbors were pouring into that basement.  My dad and other dads were dragging behind finishing up closing their houses.  Finally the dads all arrived down there with us just in time as we all huddled together to brace for the storm that was bearing down on us.  It struck with a fury and daylight turned to pitch dark within seconds.   

It was devastating coming up out of that basement stairway.  We had to climb over rubble that was 10 feet high because the house was totally gone, as was our house and all the others for blocks around us.  Cars were on fire, live power lines were down, explosions were happening, people were wandering around in a daze.  We started walking toward the high school in mass with other families.  Injured people were being carried on doors used as stretchers...    

To this day there seems to be a real special affection among all of us who were raised in the Ruskin area during the  60s, 70s, & 80s.  It may have originated with the tornado.  Hundreds of Ruskin graduates still gather at least once a year to stay in close touch with one another.

For more first-person accounts, check here.