A local weather phenomenon holds that the 6,100-person town of Tonganoxie, Kansas, can weaken and divide thunderstorms and tornadoes. Experts are mixed on its existence — and what causes it — but locals say otherwise.

Rita Bennett remembers the day a twister ripped through Topeka, Kansas, like it was yesterday. Bennett, her mother, father and grandmother were returning from a grocery run in north Topeka, when the sirens went off. She and her family went to her aunt’s home and sheltered under tables in the basement corner.

Bennett, who was about to turn 10 years old at the time, got separated from her parents in the basement. She remembers desperately grasping for her father’s hand, but he was just out of reach. The sound of the tornado, she said, was deafening and unforgettable.

“It was

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