The tornado in 2007 that ripped through Kansas was no ordinary one, Corbin VandenHoek and Cole Kendall quickly discovered.
The F-5 — the strongest tornado possible — leveled 95 percent of Greensburg, Kansas.
“It had never happened like that before, that bad,” VandenHoek said. “It always just like knocked trees over, power lines down, but never destroyed the town.”
VandenHoek, 16, and Kendall, 15, recalled the night of May 4, 2007, as they visited Western Pennsylvania this month as part of an exchange program sponsored by the Greensburg Rotary. The rotary chapters in the two states formed a bond because of the tragedy and the shared name.
Kendall, 9 at the time, huddled under a desk in the basement of a friend's home after he and others in the house heard the tornado siren blare and weather reports.
“I really thought it would be like all the other ones and dissipate before it got to town,” Kendall said.
But when he, his family and the family they were with walked outside they saw the devastation. The tornado had obliterated a wall of the home, and there was destruction as far as they could see.
“Between flashes of lightning we could see our van had a tree going through the windshield. Trees and power lines were down everywhere,” Kendall said.
He stayed with his friend's family until his sister could make it there and pick them up.
VandenHoek, who lives in nearby Haviland, was heading home with the family of a friend from a track meet when the high winds struck Greensburg. They couldn't enter the central Kansas town until 3:30 a.m., nearly six hours after the winds subsided.
“We were north of town and trying to get into town,” recalled VandenHoek, then 10. “We didn't really know what was happening. We didn't know what was going on. It took a long while to get into town.”
The high winds spared both teens' homes.
VandenHoek said he couldn't get over the extent of damage.
“I was kind of, I guess, in awe,” he said. “I just didn't expect it. It finally hit me that it was actually happening.”
The teens arrived in this area on June 21. As part of the exchange, they returned to Kansas Wednesday, accompanied by Chad Austad, 17, a Greensburg Salem student. He will return to Pennsylvania later this month.
“I've never been out there, so I don't know what the terrain looks like or anything,” Austad said before leaving.
“I think it's pretty cool,” he said of the annual exchange, in its fifth year.
“It's two completely different places, so you get to see what each place is like,” Austad said.
The rising senior will visit the Kansas home of Weston Jantz, who visited Pennsylvania last year.
On their trip, VandenHoek and Kendall went to Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh and the beach, among several places. They watched jets zoom past during the Westmoreland County Air Show at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport near Latrobe.
VandenHoek called Pittsburgh “intense.”
“We don't have big cities close to us,” he said.
They liked their trip to Washington, where they toured the White House, went to the Library of Congress and visited the Smithsonian.
Both Kansas teens were struck immediately by one thing after landing in Western Pennsylvania. “It's hilly,” they said, almost in unison.
Kansas is flat, they explained, and roads have few curves.
“Everyone here is in a hurry,” added Kendall. “In Kansas, you're not really in a hurry at all.”
Both like the exchange program.
“It gives a chance for the kids to see different lifestyles, cultures,” VandenHoek said.
Both learned they would be part of the exchange program after being summoned to the principal's office.
“I got to the office and the first thing I said was, “What did I do?'” Kendall said. “They (people waiting in the office) said they were from Greensburg, Pennsylvania.”
VandenHoek, likewise, thought the worst, until he saw Mark Barnhart, a Greensburg, Pa., funeral director who helps organize the trips, in the principal's office.
Upon seeing Barnhart, “I said, ‘yyyyyeeesss,'” VandenHoek remembered, knowing he would be headed east.
The superintendent of Kiowa County Schools in Kansas, who is a Rotary member, helps pick Kansas students for the all-expenses-paid exchange program. The Greensburg Rotary does interviews and then selects students to travel to Kansas.
Only about half of the 1,500 residents who lived in Greensburg, Kansas, before the tornado stayed there, VandenHoek and Kendall said.
Townspeople used the devastation to start anew and construct buildings that are environmentally friendly.
The tornado taught them an important lesson, VandenHoek and Kendall said.
“Don't take things for granted,” VandenHoek said.
“You don't know what you have, or how good you have it, until it's gone,” Kendall added.
Bob Stiles is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 724-836-6622 or bstiles@tribweb.com.
