Douglas County remembers 2019 tornado that carved damaging path through county

The tornado that started south of Clinton Lake on May 28, 2019, left an EF-4 scar across Douglas and Leavenworth counties, injured 18 people and caused no deaths. Douglas County Emergency Management marked the anniversary by revisiting a storm that briefly produced EF-3 damage in northeastern Douglas County near Linwood and Eudora before strengthening farther east.

The National Weather Service said the tornado grew out of a line of thunderstorms that developed over southeastern Kansas and became anchored on a warm front. It tracked east-northeast for 31.82 miles, reached a maximum width of about 1 mile and peaked at estimated winds of 170 mph before cycling off near the western Kansas City metro area. The storm narrowly missed much of Lawrence and Eudora, but it still carved a damaging corridor through the county and into southern Leavenworth County.

In Linwood, local reporting at the time said about 30 houses were damaged. Power lines came down, roads became impassable and Douglas County Emergency Management and law enforcement urged residents not to sightsee in damaged areas so responders could keep working. Douglas County Emergency Management later held a media briefing on May 29, 2019, with interim director Joe Hoelscher, Sheriff Ken McGovern, Wakarusa Township Fire Chief Mike Baxter and Public Works Director Keith Browning.

The damage also drew an unusually fast scientific response. Within three days, a 16-person University of Kansas team, funded through the National Science Foundation’s Structural Extreme Events Reconnaissance Network, completed 271 door-to-door damage assessments. KU researchers said the findings could help inform future building codes in Kansas and beyond, a reminder that the storm’s impact did not end when the tornado lifted.

The 2019 outbreak was part of a record 14-day tornado sequence that produced roughly 400 tornadoes nationwide. Seven years later, the Douglas County storm remains one of the most significant in recent memory for northeastern Kansas, not just because of its strength, but because it showed how quickly a tornado can turn a near miss for Lawrence into a severe and expensive hit for neighboring communities.