Kansas Tornado Survivors Return To Ruin

Death Toll Reaches 10; As Much As 95 Percent Of Greensburg, Kan., Destroyed

(CBS/AP) 
Bunting said he believed everyone had been found, but fresh search dogs were still being brought in from Missouri to continue the hunt for possible survivors and victims amid the debris.

Paramedic Annette Gasten and her German shepherd, Greta, spent a grim weekend searching the wreckage.

"Even though I have been to other disasters, this one was a lot worse — the amount of damage," Gasten said. "It is such a large area that was destroyed that it made it difficult."

The tornado's wind was estimated to have reached 205 mph as it carved a track 1.7 miles wide and 22 miles long.

The National Weather Service classified it an F-5, the highest category and the first since the weather service revised its scale this year in an effort to more comprehensively gauge tornadoes' damage potential, with less emphasis on wind speed. The last tornado classified as an F-5 hit the Oklahoma City area on May 3, 1999, killing 36 people.

The 10 deaths over the weekend brought the total number of tornado-related deaths this year in the United States to 68, Sreenivasan reported.

In Kansas, the governor said the state's response was limited by the shifting of emergency equipment, such as tents, trucks and semitrailers, to the war in Iraq.

"Not having the National Guard equipment, which used to be positioned in various parts of the state, to bring in immediately is really going to handicap this effort to rebuild," she said.

Sharon Watson, a spokeswoman for the adjutant general's office, which manages state resources during emergencies, said the state has a shortage of heavy equipment transport trailers, pallet-sized loading systems, Humvees, dump trucks and other large equipment that would be help move massive amount of debris.

"We are never at 100 percent because we are allocated a certain amount from the National Guard Bureau. With the war, we are much shorter than we would be. We have about 40 percent of what is allocated," Watson said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency was bringing in travel trailers to house some of the town's residents.

There was no indication when people would be able to move into those trailers, though, because the area was choked with debris and the town had no clean water. School superintendent Darin Headrick said classes will be canceled for the rest of the academic year in Greensburg, and graduation would be held elsewhere.

City Administrator Steve Hewitt said his job Monday would be to get city government working again. He said he needed to find employees, get purchase orders out, pay employees and bills — in short, create commerce again in Greensburg.

"Get government going — that is our No. 1 priority," Hewitt said.