10 years since the Kearney tornado

Posted By: Channel 8 Eyewitness News

8@klkntv.com

May 29th, 2008 a day many people in Kearney remember as multiple tornadoes touched down in the city.

We looked 10 years back, to hear what Kearney residents, must say about that day.

The emotions one Kearney woman felt during the storm-still stick with her.

"Petrified, scared because it was right over Kearney. The radio announcers were saying this is very serious. We had little kids, three little girls. Of course, you’re just petrified,” Kearney resident Jolene Berke said.

"And it was just really rough out and dark. I mean you could tell it was tornado weather,” resident Jim Berglund said.

The National Weather Service said there are a few days like this every year.

"That day, that Thursday afternoon things just really came together,” Ryan Pfannkuch with The National Weather Service in Hastings said. “The storms were kind of by themselves and whenever a storm is on its own and it doesn’t join up with other storms, it has more of an ability to strengthen and potentially produce tornadoes. And that’s what happened that day. We had these individual super cell storms we call them moving across the area.”

The National Weather Service said that there were three storms reported that night, the most significant one hit Kearney.

"The tornadoes hit Kearney right about 5 p.m. kind of between five and six. We issued tornado warnings with about 20 to 30 minutes,” Pfannkuch said.

After the storm hit, Kearney-residents said the thing they remember the most was the damage.

"We were kind of in the area that got the hardest hit. I remember the apartments on 39th. A car went on top of another car and there were roof damages," Berke said.

One area off 39th Street damaged during the tornado had so much damage that it had to be re-built.

"That was part of a roof that went up in the air. It also picked up a car and went on top of another car. That was the same neighborhood,” Berglund said.

"We were lucky that it wasn’t worse than what it was. We didn’t have any loss of life and it was just basically things that were damaged," Kearney resident Danny Moore said.

The Buffalo County Fairgrounds were hit the hardest-causing them to be completely re-built to what they are today.