Author’s Note: Although this story was written in 2020, the interview for it took place in 2016 as a class assignment for a TV news class.
April 26, 1991 was like any other Friday.
My Dad, Troy, was 17-years-old and a junior in high school, living in the small town of Andover, Kansas, about a five minute drive east of Wichita. He was getting ready to head over to a local church to play Friday night basketball.
However, a powerful thunderstorm was brewing about half an hour southwest of Andover near the town of Clearwater. The storm would eventually spawn a powerful tornado, which would become known as the Andover Tornado.
About an hour before the basketball game would have started, Dad received a call from his friend Brian.
“(He was) asking if I was watching the tornado,” Dad said.
The tornado that would become synonymous with the town it destroyed started to produce extensive damage as it formed south of Clearwater just before 6 p.m. It grew in strength as it moved through the north side of Haysville.
The Andover Tornado continued its trek northeast, soon entering the Wichita city limits near 56th Street South and Broadway/US 81. Around 6:20, the tornado was about 300 feet wide and crossed I-35 on the Kansas Turnpike. Moments later, it arrived at McConnell Air Force base.
The Andover Tornado tears through McConnell Air Force Base on the evening of April 26, 1991.
Several eyewitnesses caught the tornado on camera that day, including at the Air Force Base. The tornado tore through power lines, which cutoff the tornado sirens sounding in the area. It hit the base school, hospital and some housing at F3 strength. The tornado caused $62 million in damage at the base, and it narrowly missed a multibillion-dollar line of B-1 bombers.
The tornado expanded to more than 600 yards by 6:29 and was reaching maximum intensity. It continued moving northeast through Wichita and exited the city reaching F5 status as it approached Andover.
Seeing the tornado
When Dad got the call from his friend Brian, the tornado was still down in Haysville. As the minutes ticked away, Dad eventually went outside as the tornado traveled closer.
“I went outside with the cordless telephone and stood in the street on Parallel and looking down the street, I could see the tornado from Andover,” Dad said.
As the tornado tore through Wichita, Dad could see it growing in size.
“It was getting bigger, but I had no point of reference to tell,” he said. “I didn’t know how bit it was where it was, but as it got closer, it appeared larger.”
Before he went outside to observe the tornado, Dad sent his twin brothers — Brian and Todd, who were almost 14 at the time — to the basement of their home. He would soon join them.
By about 6:30, the tornado was quickly approaching Andover. Dad said it was a couple of blocks south of the home he’s lived in since 2005 in Andover, near Douglas and Andover road. He quickly joined Brian and Todd in the basement.
“It didn’t seem like it was very long, probably less than 10 or 15 minutes,” Dad said. “I didn’t go inside until there was heavy debris in the air,, so the wind was seriously picking up.”
By the time he joined his brothers in the basement, Dad said the tornado was close to being done passing through Andover, where the Golden Spur Mobile Home Park was destroyed.
“I remember thinking it does kind of sound like a freight train,” Dad said.
The Andover Tornado moved on toward Towanda, passing just south of the town. It continued northeast and reached El Dorado Lake around 7 p.m. Just after crossing over the lake to the northeast, the tornado dissipated and died out. It had traveled for 46 miles and had been on the ground for more than an hour.
Finding relics from the tornado
Dad moved into the former Golden Spur Mobile Home Park, which had since been rebuilt, with Mom in early 1994.
Almost immediately, Dad said, he found relics from the tornado.
“They eventually bulldozed the whole park over after getting the big pieces out,” Dad said. “The consternation of many of the people who lived there that really didn’t get in again and try and find anything that might be left.”
The land where Dad and Mom’s mobile home was on had not had a mobile home on it since the tornado. Dad said any time he went to dig a hole in the ground for any reason, he found relics from the tornado.
“A lot of like dinnerware, parts of cups and plates,” Dad described the items he had found. “I think there were a few pieces of silverware, parts of plastic toys. Just kind of random every day items.”
Dad said he started to store the items underneath the deck under the porch of the house for years. He didn’t feel right throwing the items away.
When we moved out of the mobile home park in 2005, Dad left the relics behind.
“I thought about taking them when we moved from there, but I decided that didn’t feel right,” Dad said. “So I just left them down behind the concrete slab under the porch. There’s probably two or three items of miscellaneous things.”
Although it’s been nearly three decades since that stormy April day, Dad said the memory of that day remains strong in his mind.
The Andover Tornado tears through Andover, Kansas, on April 26, 1991, destroying the Golden Spur Mobile Home Park. The blue home that is circled is the home where Dad was in shelter with his twin brothers on the evening of the storm.
“It’s one of those things that sticks with you forever,” he said. “Every year when it starts to get close to the time, I’ve kind of relieved it in my mind and look up. There’s one video where you can see the house I was standing in front of as the tornado goes by. I watch that video and I very much kind of relive that moment.”
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