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Area man captures tornado on video

By Caroline Trowbridge - | May 7, 2003

Ken Ketchum made several photographs of the tornado that ripped across southern Leavenworth County on Sunday afternoon.

Ketchum lives on 190th Street, about a mile south of Evans Road, with his wife, Jennifer, and two children, Haley, 7, and Sean, 5.

Ken Ketchum was the only member of the family at home Sunday afternoon.

Although it’s difficult to know exactly how far away the tornado was when he took the photographs, Ketchum estimated it was between one and two miles southeast to east of his home.

“We work outside, and I pay attention to the weather,” said Ketchum, a builder. “All winter long, all the weather people were saying it was going to be the worst tornado season of the year.”

Ketchum said that as he watched television weather reports on Sunday that the focus was on a tornado that was reported near Jarbalo. And then the report of a tornado near Leavenworth County Road 25 and Interstate 70 was broadcast.

“I go outside and I see it right away,” he said. “The people there had very little warning.”

At the time Ketchum was making the photographs, light rain was falling.

And what about reports that tornadoes sound like trains roaring past?

“It sounded like an airplane going by,” he said.