A tornado touched down near Andover, Kansas, a town about 10 miles to the east of Wichita, Kansas, just after 8 p.m. CT.
Video shows that the twister cut through or near a residential community in the east Wichita suburbs as sirens sounded.
Multiple cars were dragged on the ground and pushed up against the Andover YMCA where major damage has been reported. No injuries occurred in the tornado as employees and members took shelter, according to the Greater Wichita YMCA.
The tornado approached from the southwest where a neighborhood is located. More than a dozen homes have been destroyed in that area, according to the Wichita Eagle. A Wichita Eagle reporter reported damage to roofs of multiple homes nearby.
Local police reported that multiple major intersections were blocked due to debris and downed powerlines. Sedgwick County has declared a state of emergency to help facilitate state aid, according to KAKE.com.
A verbal declaration of emergency in Sedgwick County. Emergency Operations Center and the Local Emergency Operations Plan. This declaration will help facilitate state aid.
Several storm chasers followed the tornado as it moved northeastward from town as radar confirmed the tornado.
In separate thunderstorms that swept through after the tornado, Andover also received golf ball size hail at 9:30 p.m. local time.
Unfortunately, Andover is no stranger to strong tornadoes.
Andover was hit by an F5 tornado in April of 1991. That tornado killed 13 people in a mobile home park plus 4 other people and the outbreak $300 million in damage. It also injured over 200 people.
Several other tornadoes have also touched down across Nebraska and Kansas as a large storm system sweeps eastward from the central Rockies into the Midwest. More than 20,000 customers were without power in Kansas as of Friday evening.
Two homes were damaged by a possible tornado near Herington, Kansas.
Tornadoes were reported in Wamego, Kansas, and near Stamford, Nebraska, and elsewhere across eastern Kansas, but little damage has been reported.
In Shelton, Nebraska, train cars were pushed off their tracks by strong straight-line winds Friday evening.
This is a developing story.
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