Tornado Season Breakdowns Near Wichita: What to Do Under a Watch or Warning

If your car dies near Wichita under a tornado watch, you have time to get help. Call for a tow and keep an eye on the sky. Under a tornado warning, forget the car for now. The National Weather Service says a vehicle is not safe in a tornado. Get to the closest sturdy building. If you can't, get down low in the car and cover your head, or lie in a dry ditch. Call for a tow after the warning ends.

Is it a watch or a warning?

Your phone may buzz with either one. They call for very different moves.

Alert	What the weather service says it means	What it means for your stalled car
Tornado watch	Tornadoes are possible in and near the area.	Call for help now. Pick a building you could reach on foot.
Tornado warning	A tornado has been seen or shows on radar. Danger is close.	Leave the car. Get to the closest solid shelter.

A watch is a heads up. A warning is the real thing. Under a watch, a flat tire on Kellogg is still just a flat tire. Under a warning, it doesn't matter what's wrong with the car.

Why do Wichita drivers take this so seriously?

The Wichita weather service office keeps a list of the area's worst storms. Several of them hit the city or its suburbs:

• April 26, 1991. A tornado outbreak ran across the Plains from morning until after dark. The weather service counts 55 tornadoes that day.
• May 3, 1999. Around sunset, an F4 tornado tore across Haysville, just south of Wichita. It killed 6 people.
• April 14, 2012. The most costly tornado of that outbreak was an EF-3. It hit the southeast side of Wichita after dark.
• April 29, 2022. An EF-3 struck Andover, on Wichita's east edge. Around 1,000 buildings were damaged.

Notice the times. Two of these came at sunset or after dark. That's when a dead battery on a dark shoulder feels the most alone. It's also when you can't see what's coming.

What do the sirens mean if you're stuck in your car?

Sedgwick County runs 153 outdoor warning sirens. The county is clear about one thing: the sirens are not meant to be heard indoors. They warn people who are outside to get inside. With the windows up and the radio on, you may not hear them at all.

Here's what the county says about when they sound:

• Every Monday at noon. That's a test, unless it's a holiday or the sky looks bad. If it's a sunny Monday at noon, it's the test.
• A steady tone. This means a tornado warning. It starts on its own when the weather service issues a warning.
• No all clear. The county does not sound one. Don't wait for a second siren before you move.

Two more details matter on the road. The county is split into five siren zones for now. If a warning touches any part of a zone, every siren in that zone sounds. So a siren near you doesn't mean the storm is on your block. Treat it as real anyway.

Also, half of the sirens run only on regular power. If the power is out in your area, those sirens won't sound. Your phone is the better alarm. The county says siren alerts usually come at about the same time as the emergency alert on your cell phone. Keep those alerts turned on all spring.

Your car stalls during a tornado warning. What now?

Say your car dies on I-135 near downtown, and the warning hits your phone. Go through these steps in order.

1. Call 911 if anyone is hurt or the car is stuck in a live lane. Sentinel is not an emergency service.
2. Find a sturdy building. A store, a church or an office beats any car. Don't count on a shed or a mobile home. The weather service says neither one is safe.
3. Walk there only if you can stay clear of traffic. Rain and wind make you hard to see.
4. No building in reach? The weather service gives two choices. Get down in the car and cover your head. Or leave the car and lie in a low spot, like a ditch.
5. Stay down until the warning ends. Then deal with the car.

Pick the low spot with care

A ditch is only a shelter if it's dry. Wichita moves a lot of water in a storm. A flood canal runs between the lanes of I-135 through the middle of the city. The big floodway known as the Big Ditch runs close to I-235. Those are not places to lie down. If water is moving near you, stay in the car and cover your head.

Don't drive into water to reach shelter, either. The weather service says 12 inches of rushing water can carry away most cars. Two feet can carry away SUVs and trucks.

What should you do under a watch?

A watch gives you something a warning doesn't: time. Use it.

• Call for help now. Don't wait to see if the storm builds. The sooner your driver is moving, the better.
• Get the car off the main lanes if it still rolls. An exit ramp to a store lot on Rock Road beats the Kellogg shoulder.
• Spot your shelter. Look for the nearest gas station, big store or office. Know how you'd get there on foot.
• Save your battery. If the engine is off, keep your phone charged instead of running the radio for hours.
• Watch the sky and your phone. If a warning comes, drop the tow plan and take cover.

Need to reach the Kansas Highway Patrol? Dial *47 on your cell phone. On the Kansas Turnpike, dial *582. Before you plan a route home, check the KanDrive map or dial 511 for road conditions.

When is it safe to call for a tow after the storm?

Call once the warning has ended and the worst of the storm has moved on. Then tell the dispatcher what the storm left behind. Your partner tow company plans around these:

• Downed power lines. Stay far away. Tell 911 and the dispatcher.
• Hail damage or broken glass. Say so, so your driver knows what to expect.
• Debris on the road. Say if branches or parts of signs are blocking your lane.
• Standing water. Say if the car sat in water. Don't try to start it.

After a Wichita storm, the job is often one of three kinds. If the car slid off onto a soaked shoulder, a winch-out can pull it back to the pavement when it's close to the road. If the battery died while you waited out the storm, a jump start may be all you need. If the car took hail, water or a hit, get a car tow to a repair shop.

How does Sentinel work after a storm?

Sentinel Towing is a towing and roadside network, not a tow company. A vetted local partner tow company does the job. We text you a locked price before anyone is sent. If the job changes, like a branch on the hood, we text a new price first, and you decide. Under our Stay-With-You Promise, we check on you by text until the truck arrives. For Wichita's freeways, heat and nearby towns, see our Wichita towing page.

Stuck right now? Call 1-888-TOW-1213, or request help online.

Wichita Tornado Season Breakdown Questions

Rules change, so check the official source before you rely on it. Sources: NWS tornado safety, NWS watch and warning, NWS Wichita historic events, Sedgwick County Outdoor Warning System, NWS Turn Around Don't Drown, Kansas Highway Patrol, KDOT KanDrive.