Powerful storms developed near Emporia on Thursday, bringing damaging winds to the Lebo and Waverly areas before pushing out of the KVOE listening area.
Several large tree limbs and even a few mature trees were toppled after storms roared through Coffey County after 3 pm. Shingles were pulled from roofs in the Lebo area, and in one case part of a roof was ripped from a 5-car garage, according to the National Weather Service. Also, several power lines were snapped, knocking out power to over 600 Westar Energy customers from Lebo into southern Osage County. Lyon-Coffey Electric, meanwhile, reported lines and poles down along with an unlisted number of individual outages across its system but offer no other specifics.
Winds were estimated as high as 70 mph in the Lebo area. Other areas in Kansas, including Topeka and Lecompton, had wind gusts as high as 80 to 90 mph from the same line of storms.
Thursday’s severe weather in eastern Kansas was part of a much larger system that spawned damaging tornadoes in Iowa and severe storms in Missouri that likely led to the deaths of over 10 people at Table Rock Lake when 3- to 4-foot waves capsized a tour boat filled with people. Several people were hurt and at least five were still missing as of early Friday morning.
Photos by Tonya Combes
{gallery}Storms Tonya Combes July 19 2018{/gallery}
