6/27/2008

Sounded like 10 trains

As Tony Klima, 41, Wichita, worked Thursday to replace windows at the Chapman home of his mother, Becky Rittenhouse, Klima remembered the tornado.

"We were both here, in the basement. They say it sounds like a train. It sounded like 10 trains going 200 miles an hour," said Klima, a 1985 Chapman High School graduate.

The tornado went over the top of his mother's home, destroying a home just down the street.

"It was very loud," Klima said.

Remembering the pets

n Pastor Jack Gilstrap, of Abilene's First Baptist Church, will conduct a pet memorial and blessing service at 2 p.m. Sunday on the lawn by the tennis courts in Chapman.

Gilstrap said the main part of the service will be to remember pets lost in the tornado that hit Chapman on June 11.

"It will be a service of remembrance and closure," Gilstrap said. "Pets are a very important part of people's homes and lives, and to lose them in that way is much harder."

People also are welcome to bring their pets to the service to be blessed, he said.

Post office pickup

n Mail services were postponed in Chapman on June 12, the day after the tornado, but the post office has been in operation since, said Heather Hill, a postal clerk.

Mail delivery resumed on June 13, she said.

As usual, Chapman residents who have post office boxes are getting their mail at the post office, Hill said. People who were on delivery routes, but lost their homes, are picking up their mail at the post office.

While spirits remain high, Hill said, people are taking day trips to Salina or Junction City "just to get out" for a while.

It's gonna be bare

n As the temperature in Chapman approached 100 degrees Thursday afternoon, Terry Shry, an employee of Blixt Construction, Chapman, separated metal, wood, appliances, hazardous materials and other items from tornado wreckage, so the materials could be disposed of correctly.

Colleagues were running track hoes, trucks and loaders, clearing debris from a Chapman neighborhood.

"About two blocks are gonna be bare," Shry said.

The homes of his bosses, LeRoy Blixt and Jeff Blixt, were among those destroyed, Shry said.

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