Kansas City Star Editorial, June 24, 2019

A “rapid-response” structural engineering team based at the University of Kansas conducted a preliminary study of damage from the May 28 EF4 tornado that gouged Linwood, Kansas, and environs. The engineers documented houses utterly unprepared to withstand the upward surge a twister can produce. The 16-member engineering team, which was swiftly organized by Elaina Sutley, NHERI researcher and KU assistant professor of engineering, was financed by the National Science Foundation’s Structural Extreme Events Reconnaissance Network. After the Tuesday tornado, the team was on the ground by Friday, assessing every third structure in dense areas until they’d surveyed 271 of them door to door.

Read the full editorial here.