Kansas
‘It looked like an umbilical cord.’ Residents clean up after deadly Kansas tornado
WESTMORELAND — With a tornado headed directly toward their Westmoreland home, retirees Barry and Beverly Toburen sought refuge Tuesday with their three dogs in their bathroom.
The lights flickered off, came back on, then flickered off again, Barry Toburen told The Capital-Journal on Wednesday.
Then the tornado hit.
“My ears popped real loud, and everything went sideways there,” Toburen said. “It blew the door in on me, knocked me over on top of the wife, and then all of a sudden, it got real light. Obviously, it got light because the roof was gone. And then the sheetrock and everything came down on top of us.”
The Toburens’ home was in or near ground zero of the area hit by Tuesday’s tornado, which Pottawatomie County public information officer Becky Ryan said killed one person, caused minor injuries to three others, destroyed 22 homes and left 13 homes damaged but livable.
The name, age and gender of the person who died wasn’t being immediately released.
‘It looked like an umbilical cord’
Leslie Campbell said her husband videotaped the tornado on his cellphone as they watched it from a large hill.
The tornado “didn’t look like a tornado,” Campbell said. “It looked like an umbilical cord.”
“It was really long, and it didn’t touch down for a long time, and finally we saw it touch down,” she said.
Campbell said the homes damaged in Westmoreland included that of her mother-in-law, Linda Campbell.
Father and son sought shelter in hallway as tornado destroyed home
Ashley Van Gilder, a Westmoreland resident whose home was among those hit, described what happened as being “just devastating.”
She said she wasn’t home at the time, but her husband and their 8-year-old son Joseph were.
Joseph said he and his father sought shelter in a hallway of their home as the tornado loudly passed though.
“It was very weird,” he said. “We heard it touch down. It was cracking and stuff.”
Joseph’s father held him down as the tornado passed through, he said.
The family’s hallway has always been its “safe place” during times of potential severe weather, though members had talked earlier this week about potentially finding an alternative, Ashley VanGilder said.
Westmoreland family digs out from destroyed home
Barry Toburen, whose house was destroyed, said he had stood outside watching as the twister approached.
“The wife said, ‘Get your butt in the house!” he said.
Later, after crawling out from the wreckage, Barry Toburen said he realized that a large limb had been coming toward his head but stopped just short of it.
The tornado destroyed items that included Barry Toburen’s brand new lawnmower.
“I mowed the yard twice with it,” he said, with a laugh.
Barry Toburen said he managed to recover other items that included medals he’d been awarded while in the military.
He said he and his wife had gotten a motel room in nearby Wamego and were boarding their three dogs with a veterinarian there.
Another Westmoreland family is trying to salvage ‘sentimental things’
Jason Resser said he was away when the tornado went straight down the middle of the house where he has lived for 24 years.
“Everything in the core of the house is completely gone,” said Resser, who is manager of Westmoreland’s Dollar General Store.
He said he and his wife and children were looking Wednesday for “sentimental things” and furniture they could reuse.
Spokeswoman: 175 people turned out to help clean up debris
A team from the National Weather Service’s Topeka office was in Westmoreland on Wednesday assessing the damage and determining Tuesday’s tornado’s rating on the Enhanced Fujita scale used to measure tornado intensity, said Nathan Griesemer, a meteorologist for that office.
Storm surveys were also being conducted in Shawnee, Jefferson and Nemaha counties.
In addition to the houses that were hit, the tornado destroyed five outbuildings, including one each owned by Pottawatomie County and housing its recycling processing and noxious weed operations, said Ryan, the Pottawatomie County public information officer.
Pottawatomie County offices, which are based in Westmoreland, were closed to the public Wednesday.
More than 175 people were in Westmoreland on Wednesday helping clean up debris, Ryan said, describing that turnout as “amazing.”
Those helping clean up included at least 30 teachers and other employees from local schools.
The American Red Cross on Tuesday evening provided a temporary shelter at Rock Creek High School, Ryan said. That was being moved Wednesday to the Westmoreland Community Building, she said.
The Salvation Army was on hand providing meals, she said.
Tuesday’s tornado fatality was the first in Kansas since Richard D. Slade, 53, was killed Feb. 28, 2012, by a EF-2 tornado that struck his home at Harveyville in Wabaunsee County.
Contact Tim Hrenchir at threnchir@gannett.com or 785-213-5934.
The Detroit Tigers were beaten by the Kansas City Royals 5-1 on Saturday night.
Michael Wacha pitched seven scoreless innings, Bobby Witt Jr. hit an inside-the-park home run on a grounder and Michael Massey had a three-run homer for the Royals, who will go for the series sweep on Sunday night.
Witt hit the ball down the right-field line in the first inning that bounced off the wall and eluded right fielder Kerry Carpenter. Witt motored around the bases and beat the relay throw to the plate for a two-run homer.
It was the Royals’ first inside-the-park home run since Witt did it in August 2023.
Carpenter left the game later with left shoulder soreness.
Wacha (4-2) gave up two hits, walked two and struck out six. It was his longest scoreless outing since throwing eight scoreless innings against the Chicago White Sox on April 11.
Burch Smith (0-2) took the loss. He retired only one of the four batters he faced, allowing two runs on three hits in one-third of an inning.
Massey’s homer in the fourth inning came with runners on first and third with two outs. He lined the ball over the right-center field fence for his third homer of the season.
Wacha had at least one strikeout in each of his first four innings. The Tigers loaded the bases in the fifth on a double, a walk and a hit batter, but Wacha got Matt Vierling to ground out to end the inning.
The Tigers scored in the eighth on a two-out double by Riley Greene.
Up next
The teams conclude the three-game series Sunday. The Tigers have not announced a starter, though manager AJ Hinch said it will be a bullpen game. Kansas City will send LHP Noah Cameron (2-2, 5.40 ERA) to the mound.
Bullet point summary by AI
- The Chiefs are exploring long-term solutions at tight end beyond Travis Kelce’s expected 2026 retirement.
- One potential move involves targeting a veteran player from a team transitioning to a new starter at the position.
- The deal’s structure hinges on future playoff performance, creating a high-stakes incentive for both franchises.
While the 2026 draft is just in the books, it’s never too early to start thinking about the 2027 season — and if there’s one team that’s already looking that far ahead, it’s the Kansas City Chiefs.
Star tight end Travis Kelce is almost certainly retiring after the 2026 campaign despite an inflated new deal, and looking at the Chiefs’ depth chart, backup Noah Gray is not starting-caliber material. You could argue the team can scout for star talent in next year’s draft, but that would come with significant risk and opportunity cost if a prospect isn’t immediately NFL-ready.
Instead, there’s a potential solution general manager Brett Veach can utilize by acquiring an excess asset from another team.
This Chiefs-Bears trade solves Kansas City’s Travis Kelce problem
The Chicago Bears are clearly moving forward with 2025 first-round pick Colston Loveland as their TE1, in addition to taking blocking specialist Sam Roush out of Stanford in this year’s draft. All of which leaves backup — and previous starter — Cole Kmet on the outside looking in. The 27-year-old still has a lot of high-quality football left to play, and he’d certainly sign off on the opportunity to get starting snaps for a team with a championship window still wide open.
The problem is going to be convincing Chicago to pick up the phone in the first place. Kmet signed a restructured deal in April which disincentivizes the Bears from moving him until next year. A pre-June 1 deal would cost Chicago $4.1 million against the salary cap, while any swap after that date only saves the team $1.4 million.
So, with the present season not really an option, these two teams would need to be negotiating with next year in mind as Kmet is projected to cost the Bears $15.4 million against the cap in 2027. That’s the incentive Chicago needs to move him.
At the moment, Kmet is worth a conditional 2027 fifth-round pick — which may sound cheap, but the devil is in the details. Chicago will certainly dictate that an escalator be attached to the pick: For example, if Kansas City misses the playoffs in 2027, then it remains a fifth-rounder but may be deferred until 2028. If they qualify for the postseason then it could stay in 2027. A championship could push it up a round or two (though that would be a tough sell for the Chiefs).
Kmet has topped 500 receiving yards in three of his six seasons in Chicago, so there’s a good reason for Kansas City to inquire about his availability. The Bears, in turn, used a third-round pick to select Stanford’s Sam Roush – signaling they too are preparing for Kmet’s eventual departure.
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Stormont Vail Healthcare is in a legal battle with the state government, alleging the Medicaid program was wrong to refuse payment for the hospitalization of a pregnant patient with complications.
At issue is a disagreement between the Topeka hospital and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment over whether inpatient health care services were medically necessary for the Medicaid patient’s last two weeks of pregnancy.
The Kansas Court of Appeals did not resolve that dispute, but it did side with Stormont Vail in a May 8 decision. The unanimous three-judge panel reversed a decision by Shawnee County District Court Judge Thomas Luedke and vacated an order from KDHE’s State Appeals Committee. The matter now goes back to the appeals committee for reconsideration.
The appellate panel was comprised of Judges Jacy Hurst, Thomas Malone and Stephen Hill, which heard oral arguments on Aug. 5. Hurst wrote the court’s opinion.
The lawsuit stems from a 2018 case of a pregnant patient, who is not named in appellate court documents. She was 28 years old at the time and had an intellectual disability among other complications, including rapid weight loss caused by hyperemesis gravidarum.
The woman was originally admitted at Newman Regional Health in Emporia before she was transferred to Stormont Vail. Part of the hospitalization during her third trimester was covered.
But the final two weeks were not because Sunflower Health Plan, one of the managed care organizations in the state’s privatized Medicaid program known as KanCare, refused to reimburse for the patient’s continued hospitalization through the day the child was born via cesarean section.
“We are here because the Kansas Medicaid program has wrongfully refused to pay for some of an inpatient hospitalization while a Medicaid beneficiary was at Stormont Vail,” said Amanda Wilwert, an attorney for the hospital, during oral arguments. “Stormont believes the inpatient care was medically necessary as defined by the Kansas Medicaid regulations.”
Court records and oral arguments show the state expected Stormont Vail to look into having a home health agency care for the patient in Emporia instead of continued hospitalization — even though home health generally does not take care of pregnant patients and her doctors believed the expectant mother was not stable enough to discharge.
“The way it’s supposed to work,” said Darren Sharp, an attorney representing KDHE, “is the managed care organization, in this case Sunflower Health, on behalf of KDHE reviews the medical records, asks about the appropriate level of care and whether there’s any other interventions that would be more cost effective or appropriate depending on the level of or depending on the patient’s records and the patient’s status.”
Sharp argued medical records showed the patients was getting better because of total parenteral nutrition, or TPN.
“This is when a tube, a PICC, is inserted and your minerals and your electrolytes and all of your nutrition is then intravenously provided,” Sharp said.
He said the treatment “was eliminating her vomiting, her diarrhea, she had no fever, her glucose levels were stabilized.”
In their ruling, the judges indicated the KDHE appeals committee primarily cared about the cost saving of using home health versus hospitalization while disregarding the treating physician for insufficient reasons and ignoring evidence on potential benefits or harms to the patient.
But the judges declined to resolve the dispute. Rather, unless the decision is appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court, the matter goes back to the KDHE administrative process.
There, the agency’s appeals committee must reconsider the case consistent with the Court of Appeal’s ruling. The published decision sets new precedent interpreting state laws and regulations on the Medicaid program.
“While this court provides no opinion on whether the disputed inpatient healthcare services met the definition of medical necessity,” Hurst wrote, “the record shows that some of the (appeals committee’s) factual findings were not supported by the record as a whole and that the (appeals committee) inaccurately applied the law when it failed to consider (the patient’s) individual characteristics and assess the harms and benefits of the healthcare intervention.
“In making a medical necessity determination, the reviewing agency must make an individualized determination based on the record as a whole.”
Jason Alatidd is a Statehouse reporter for The Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jalatidd@usatodayco.com. Follow him on X @Jason_Alatidd.
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