Editor's Notebook: A Microburst Weather Tale of Terror and Destruction

Growing up in the Midwest, I have always been terrified of being in a tornado.

Maybe it was movies like Twister with the flying cow, but every time I see that magenta color on a Doppler Radar, I pack a bag.

Yes, I'm that person. I'm ready to sprint down the stairs at any moment from April to August.

While I've never been in a tornado, I have experienced something that some in West Des Moines woke up to see today.

A microburst. 

Editor Experiences Scary Microburt in Kansas

Six years ago I had never heard of the weather phenomenon.

Damage from the Kansas microburst was extensive. Check-out this photo gallery from the Lawrence Journal World.

On March 12, 2006, I was a sophomore at the University of Kansas, living off-campus with three other girls.

In the early morning hours, a localized column of positive and negative sinking air sent damaging straight-line winds whipping through the city.

Yes, I slept through most of this.

But at around 8 a.m. my roommate Jaci was pounding at the front door.

She had been at the Alvamar golf course practicing with the rest of the KU women's golf team. She had rushed home, only to find she was locked out. Outside our door were huge limbs resting on the nearby sidewalks and streets.

For the next few hours we answered phone calls from family and our other roommates, making sure we were OK. "Of course I was OK, I wouldn't have even known about this had you not called to tell me," was my reaction.

While our side of town didn't get the brunt of the damage, the campus about a mile away wasn't so lucky.

Several of the beautiful buildings sustained damage. On some accounts more than half the buildings were affected by the storm. Costs of damage were in the millions of dollars.

No Injuries But Lots of Damage

At the time we weren't worried about the buildings; we were waiting for those words you rarely hear in college.

School is Canceled Monday.

Another day to add to our weekend? All right, don't twist our arms.

That afternoon, we made a trip to Massachusetts Street, the downtown Lawrence hub for restaurants, shopping and bars.

Driving the short distance, we couldn't believe our eyes.

There were trees down along Sixth Street, shattered windows and debris everywhere.

Don't get me wrong. It was nothing like photos of tornado-ravaged cities such as Joplin, MO, but we'd never seen anything like it.

Along Massachusetts Street, awnings were hanging by threads and business owners were surveying the destruction through broken window fronts. There were traffic signals laying in the street, street signs on their sides and cars with branches crumpling their hoods.

It was nothing I had ever seen in person, and it wasn't even a real tornado.

Looking back we should have felt very lucky to miss most of the storm.

Instead we hit the bars in the dark. Did I mention there was no power in many parts of town? That's a completely different story.

The conversation for weeks forward was consumed with tales of the microburst.