This is one of the day's of my life I will never forget. So I'm going to give you all a little twist and add my story to this day.

At that time I lived 6 miles north of Kearney, Missouri which you can see on the map below. Me and the girlfriend left our home around 4:00PM on this Sunday afternoon. At that time we had bowling league which began at 6:00PM which on the map you can see where it is wrote "Excelsior __".



Just as quick as we were in the car on the 25 minute drive, the Emergency Alert System was going just absolutely nuts over the car radio. I would have to assume at this time this would be for the one between Bonner Springs, Kansas and Tonganoxie, Kansas.

As we drove along, the Emergency Alert System continued on and on until we hear reports of a tornado warning and confirmed tornado on the ground very close to the newly completed Kansas Speedway. It went just to the north of the speedway, crossed I-435 and just narrowly grazed the Woodlands which is a dog & horse racing track. Just to the east of this location is where one of the first fatalities occurred

Johnny Rowlands of KMBC-TV, which is the ABC affiliate in Kansas City was in his helicopter like he is every day for traffic reports and on many others for storm reports. This is what Johnny watched, and was showing the viewers on that day. The start of the video is the tornado through Kansas City, Kansas and then near the end, is some of the damage immediately following.



This was the first time in my life I ever heard live voices reporting across the Emergency Alert System as opposed to the computer generated voice guy we all hear so often. Now the voices were saying tornado on the ground 9 Hwy & I-635. Apparently they were watching something very similar to this.



Track these locations on the map above!

By this time I'm certain we are at the Elks Lodge in Exclesior Springs having a beer or two before we head for bowling, and at this time we are now hearing of the all damage occuring through Gladstone and Liberty Missouri. Where this was happening in Gladstone Missouri was a highly populated residential neighborhoods. When passing into Liberty it was in downtown Liberty along the old square and eventually would do damage to William Jewell College.

This video recaps all of the events above and shows a touch of Liberty near the end.



And finally from the National Weather Service, here is a ton of photos from the day.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/eax/?n=severe-may042003_pictures

After this went through Liberty Missouri, I stood on the back deck of the Elks Lodge in Excelsior Springs watching the clouds tumble over each other and rotating probably as much as two miles wide right above my head. Obviously it could of been what if just another 10 minutes, then I'm in it too. But that's my day

Wow, Doug! - you really did some work on this post! And, here, we all overlooked it.
I especially liked the video at the intersection. The Lewis & Clark sign...one of em is pointing right at that tornado. Neatness!
And, I sent Mr. SkyEye a pic of the 1-70/435 interstates w/the tornado in the background. This is the route we took coming home w/our new pup on May 9th.
Neatness again!

Thanks, Doug, for taking the time to put this post together for all of us. Good work.

~Jo~

your welcome! As I said it's the close one to home!

You know, Doug,
The whole time I was driving toward OKC, I kept wondering how anyone could see an oncoming tornado in Southern IA and through past KC, MO/KS., there are so many hills and trees.
Thanks to the photos, it appears it's not so difficult after all.
Having never seen one, myself, I keep forgetting to factor in how truly high the base of a large TS is. Since spotting funnels is easy in brushy, tree filled MN, it should be a snap to see one of these buggers. That is, if they're not rain-wrapped.
I guess the closer you are, the harder to see.
The luck of the draw. Or not.
~Jo~

Good footage Doug. I found this one on YouTube. Very raw footage.

Wylde,

Good find. Thanks. Nice of that tornado to pose for that guy while they had their video camera on already and all.
And, oddly, it did sound like a waterfall! : D

~Jo~

Greensburg anniversary day is also Kansas City's anniversary day from this horrid Sunday in May of 2003.

Thanks, Doug. Strange how Greensburg seems to occupy this date, even though a record outbreak, lasting an entire week began on May 4, 2003, took 39 lives and spawned nearly 400 tornadoes.

Service Assessment of the Record Tornado Outbreaks of May 4 - 10, 2003:



www.nws.noaa.gov/om//assessments/pdfs/record-may.pdf

How did I miss this thread before??

Thanks for sharing, Doug. Incredible..

I remeber when this happened. I was over in Europe at the time and I saw this on the news
And was wondering if my house was still there.