OTTAWA, Kan. — Kendal Anderson had just moved from Kansas City to Ottawa two months ago, bringing his wife, Natalie, and their five children to their new home after securing a job at TruComp Pipe, a manufacturer of high-pressure gas and oil pipes.

On Monday evening, a EF-2 tornado from the west swept through four blocks of the Franklin County seat, effectively destroying TruComp’s 76,000-square-foot building, shearing off its front and blasting its east side into mounds of bricks, insulation and twisted metal.

“I got a call from my coworker who said, ‘The plant’s gone. Got hit by a tornado,’” Anderson, 31, said. He was disbelieving when he left his home Monday night, following torrential rain and hail, to look. “I was like, you know, he’s being dramatic. There’s some wind damage maybe.”

It was far worse.

“I pull up. Natural gas is spraying. You can smell it in the air,” Anderson said “Power lines are down everywhere. The front of the building is ripped off. Water’s pouring in. The plant’s gone. It was pretty crazy dramatic.”

On Tuesday morning, Anderson stood outside the plant to watch a city inspector slap a red sticker on the exterior of the building, declaring it “unsafe” for occupancy.

As for the future:

“We have absolutely no idea,” Anderson said, standing on the building’s east side where two damaged offices stood open to the outdoors. In one, a pencil holder sat on a desk undisturbed. In the other, two deer heads were still mounted to the walls that remained.

“Well, this is a setback,” Todd Volker, the company’s property manager said. “I mean, it’s kind of odd to leave work one day and come back the next morning and this has happened. We’re going to run it by the insurance company and see how fast we can get this train back on the tracks.”

Tornado damage in Ottawa

Few doubt that Ottawa, a town of about 13,000 residents south of Kansas City, emerged lucky Monday evening, after the tornado touched down and cut a four-block swath, west to east, from 15th Street to 19th Street.

No one was killed. No serious injuries were reported. Only three injuries and damage to several homes were reported east of town in rural Franklin County. And while the twister decimated some buildings and businesses — ripping off their roofs, shattering glass and walls, as it toppled trees, displaced cars, overturned at least one delivery truck — it also, indiscriminately, exacted only minor damage on some buildings in its path.

Next door to TruComp, the front glass window of Hope House, a nonprofit food and clothing pantry, 205 W. 17th St., was shattered. Some ceiling tiles dislodged, an indication perhaps of some rain damage.

“We were blessed,” said Tiffany Wyatt, co-director of the organization with Michelle Graf.

The pantry, which serves 700 to 1,000 individuals each month, was not open Monday night. But it was being used for a meeting by an outside group.

“By the time it hit, four of them were still here,” Graf said. “We do have a tornado shelter, actually, and they found it.”

“And it worked!” Wyatt said. She said the building suffered some exterior damage and the shattered glass window, and some roof damage. The loss of electricity caused the loss of perishable foods.

“We will obviously not be open today, maybe not tomorrow,” Graf said. “We’ll try to be open Thursday.”

“As soon as we can get electricity,” Wyatt said.

Kansas tornado’s path of destruction

All along the tornado’s path, utility trucks could be seen hoisting utility poles and fixing power lines.

The tornado’s random destruction was again seen on the east side of Main Street where, at 1641 South Main St., the two-story motel, The Knights Inn, lay in ruin. Part of the motel was collapsed into an avalanche of broken lumber and debris. Its roof had been swept away, leaving beds, albeit with their sheets and blankets still in place, left open to the morning wind and cloudy skies.

Just to the west of the Knights Inn, McCurdy’s Auto Sales and Auto Service, 1649 South Main St., a family business for 45 years, was half intact. The other half was destroyed — its roof blown away, the front wall turned into cinder block spread across the ground.

Some of the front glass of the shop was shattered, but not all, including glass bearing written tributes — such as “Love you Jeff” and “Rest in Heaven Jeff” — to Jeffry “Jeff” Jay McCurdy, who died in March at age 67.

Nearby, at 112 East 17th St., roofers and other contractors were already busy cleaning and repairing Daylight Donuts, the building owned by landlord Alice Medina of Olathe. The building sustained some roof damage, smashed glass, and sheared trees.

“They will be back open tomorrow,” Medina said. “We were very fortunate.”

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