One-year Post-tornado Repair Progress: Wave 3

On May 28, 2019, a destructive EF4 tornado struck north-eastern Kansas, resulting in severe damage in Leavenworth County and surrounding areas. The tornado travelled 31.8 miles in 55 minutes and had a maximum width of one mile. There were 18 injuries but no fatalities. The Structural Extreme Events Reconnaissance (StEER) funded a quick response field study, referred to here as Wave 1, to document post-tornado damage to building structures along the tornado path. The Wave 1 survey documented initial building damage, aerial imagery of the tornado path and provides an essential baseline for subsequent impact and recovery studies. A second and third wave of data collection were funded by PI Sutley’s fellowship funding from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Gulf Research Program, and were executed six months and twelve months after the tornado, respectively. The Wave 2 and 3 teams consisted of structural engineering professors and students, behavioral economics professor and students, and public administration and urban planning students from the University of Kansas. Goals for Wave 2 and Wave 3 were to: (1) document risk perception, sheltering behavior, impact, and recovery experience of households during and since the May 2019 tornado, and (2) document the repair progress for homes along the tornado path six and twelve months after a major tornado in rural Kansas. This project achieves collected data from Waves 1, 2, and 3. This collection also archives survey instruments and Institutional Review Board protocol approved by the University of Kansas IRB office for Waves 2 and 3.