Pratt cleanup around 75% complete

By Clara Kilbourn

PRATT - Jane Maphet finished redecorating and cleaning her home only minutes before last Tuesday night's tornado ripped off the roof and pounded the interior with hailstones.

Maphet and her husband, Rod, a volunteer Pratt County firefighter, had completed a fiveyear remodeling project and set a Wednesday morning appointment with an appraiser with the intent of refinancing the house at a lower interest rate.

"I'm guessing you want to cancel this," was the appraisers greeting to the couple when she when she arrived last Wednesday morning and found windows blown out of the modular home and a piece of black plastic stretched over the top where the roof had been.

"We'll just start all over again," Rod Maphet said. "But we're not as bad off as some others. Our house wasn't leveled and we didn't lose our personal possessions."

Mark McManaman, director of Pratt County Emergency Services, estimated Tuesday that cleanup is about 75 percent complete in the wake of what they now think were multiple spin-off tornadoes that swept across Pratt County in a 28-mile swath from west to east.

"We're immensely improved from where we were last Wednesday morning," McManaman said.

McManaman accompanied Charles Banks, Topeka, rural development director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, on a tour of the storm damage in anticipation of USDA assistance to homeowners and government agencies who qualify for low-interest loans.

Also accompanying Banks were Pratt City Manager David Howard; Pratt County Commissioners Joe Reynolds and Charles Rinke; Harold Stones, special projects coordinator for Sen. Pat Roberts; and USDA Rural Development field man Kevin Culley, Lyons.

'We want to try our best to assist," Banks said.

Banks said he was in Great Bend the night the storm struck and took a look at the damage the next day.

"We decided to wait a week and come back," he said.

McManaman said the storm destroyed 16 homes, caused major damage to another 31 and left 239 homes with minor damage. Also damaged were about 70 irrigation systems.

A damage total will be set after estimates come in from insurance adjusters who are still working.

Banks also met with Cullison town leaders to survey damage there.

"We want to try to help them address their fire protection needs through our community facility program," Banks said.

Banks appraised the Cullison firehouse as a total loss and the adjacent city hall, with only the outer shell standing, as severely damaged.

Pratt County 4-H Fair Board President Stan Brown said after a Tuesday morning visit by the fair's insurance adjuster that cleanup will start immediately in preparation for this summer's fair, set for July 31 through Aug. 3.

Insurance will fall short of what's needed to repair the eight or nine buildings that received extensive damage, he said.

At Tuesday's Peoples Bank annual charity picnic, board chairman Howard Loomis said they would match donations made at the picnic for the 4-H fairgrounds fund.

Reporter Clara Kilbourn can be reached at ckilbourn@hutchnews.com or at (620) 6945700, ext. 321.

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