Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 6

4 4" A16 ooKeo iTom WRECKAGE LIKE Driver Blown From Auto Sad Task-Clearing Away Wreckage at His Home CHAZYPRTTERtJ Bob De Haven Says Houses and Buildings Smashed in Hit-and-Miss Fashion. Sty Airplane Tells How 1 ornac 1 1 By Bob De Havrn. WTCN CnimuiH. Pilot Harold Thurston and I took off from Wold Chamberlain air 1 port at 6:30 p. m.

Sunday to look down on the Anoka tornado trag edy. A heavy rain and a strong cross wind pushed us around, but visibility was fairly cood. We had vhat they call a "bumpy'' ride. I The pilot quietly tola me ne was glad to make the trip, even, in the bad weather, because two grandparent and two uncles of his lived in Anoka. "I hope their houses are standing," he said.

0 If f' 3ff 3 Over Osseo the traffic on high way 52 was heavy, most of it re-tumina to Minneapolis. I made some remark to Thurston. Looking out of my own window, the wet. i gray marble of a cemetery hurried by. I settled back without comment j' 4 Ill A bad sauall obliterated what Mi 1 should have been our first sight of Champlin.

We wheeled around V. to the west Then we got our first S7 I. iv glimpse of what a tornado does to a farmhouse. 7 .1 First Wrecked House. The house, barn and out-build- 111 -J.

ines were flattened to the ground as if a couple of berry boxes had been run over by a car. The tan gled mass of lumber was colored underShirt, begin, clear. ber. Va.hburn, wife, two u. ana .1 IJtrf home, by Mike Schrei- injury when they fled to the hou.e in a crazy quilt pattern; some places the red and white paint showed: iaesed ends of sidins were III UlC Tft-vnbv CHAMPLIV-A man was sitting in this car when the tornado Sunday p.cKea uP erally wrapped it around this big tree.

He is Richard Karstedt, 21, of Champl.n Karstedt wa. Tisitin at the farm of Jack Kutzer. near Champlin. The car was in front of the Kutzer farm house when the tornado struck. The car was picked up and Karstedt was torn from the mach.ne.

He was hurled nearly 200 feet across a field, and suffered a fractured arm. A splmter was blown through the lobe of one ear. The farm house was flattened. squeezed out of the wreckage. Hay Home Wrecked, Piled High-Timber Scattered if I and straw were wildly sprinkled over alL and made a path from the barn to the shore of a stream down which part of the buildings River Front Home Is Demolished was flowine.

I wondered if that farmer and his wife and his chil-. dren were alive. 1 f. Ail Entering Anoka from the west, we saw emergency lights on Main street The town was less congested than the country highways. Of I- ficers directed traffic.

Everything and everybody appeared to be under control. Houses and buildings were smashed in a hit-and-miss fash ion, as if death, two hours earlier, had perched in our position and sir 4-" i r-. said: "This one. lhat one. iurn the corner.

That one. That one. Skip the next two blocks. This one. ,1, Dili 1 illi mmniMiJlltil That one.

This one. That one. And the finger had pointed at one downtown corner where the fir f- remains of a small carnival were soaking in the rain. The caterpillar had stopped; the ticket booth was on end. The ferns wheel was crurrmled Into a weird mass.

A bicycle wheel would have as good a chance aeainst a steam roller. Thurston spotted his grandpar ents' home. Then he saw his un cles' homes. All were standing. Worst on North Side.

On the north side of Anoka we saw the worst devastation. About fciiaif niiiiiii fituft eieht houses were demolished in a three-block stretch. Streets, yards i ir'ainnlimr. mnmomi m- mi CHAMPLIN Demolished in Sunday's storm in this area was this nvcr-rroni home. Dwellings Fall Before Wind and fields were filled with lumber, furniture, over-turned automobiles.

rn.4MPiTXTh home of Milford Potvin in Champlin was part of its timbers scattered for yards around. The entire house was demolished and piled up with trees and roots as the wind lifted everything in its path. i The side of a big white house was twisted into a jumble of debris and then piled high as the tor-t The Potvin home is in the background with 4' Anoka High School Becomes Emergency Hospital tipped into a 45 degree angle, a side of the root pointed straight up. It looked like a child had done a clumsy job of putting together a cut-out house. The ammunition plant was un 1 i 1 harmed, along with the high school, court house, Catholic school.

But a block from the Catholic church a Protestant church, which 7 i joJT 4 1 we couldn't identify from 500 feet was wrecked by the fury of the wind. At the edge of town we looked down on the most orderly sight of Xi eV the trip. Fresh and clean in the rain, oddly calm in the surrounding confusion the state insane asylum. Along the shores of the Rum and i-r 4 Mississippi rivers the debris, hemmed along the banks by heav I ier planks, swirled and eddied away from the destruction. No boats were on the rivers.

We sighted the old mill, a landmark of the two towns. We dipped down to find that man had got to it before nature; its scars had been inflicted by workmen razing the old structure. One farmhouse had been pasted across the road, blocking cars on either side. At the armory the VrV jdOD juu I TriT inn it i ntinrrr i k.t in th nth nf the storm had no chance. It swept everything in its path as it moved toward Anoka from Champlin.

This pile of brick and timber was a dwelling outside of Champlin. Note the uprooted tree. stroke of the tornado wiped clean the newly constructed addition and left standing the old structure. Cabin Tossed Into Air Windmill Wrecked Farther on, a battered sedan sat in the middle of the wreckage of a garage. A corncrib was blown into y' JA the corner of a barn.

A small, white house was a few feet clear of its foundation. The Merry-Go-Round Went 'Round, 'Round Eben Small, 21, and Tony Breyen, 23, in charge cf the merry-go-round at the Anoka carnival, saw the twister coming and decided to pull down the canvas side walls. The wind struck and the merry-go-round began to go round and 37. of route 4. Anoka, lying on from its cement base and pitched AAURn ie iimiiv emergent iivaiiuriii, cot.

She later was taken to University hospital, where it was qeterminea ane nu round. Small and Breyen ran. Breyen threw himself at a sizeable nrt hrA on. Small ran and Red Cross Gets Into Action, Sends Nurses to Storm Area was thrown to the ground. He got to his feet and ran toward an auto- wm thrown to trie provide illumination for its repair Iniured at Anoka were being IIIUUUl.

ermmrl BZain. said repairs would be completed by morning, but in the meantime calls housed temporarily in the school Wrven elune to the tree, men were being routed by way of Wah- v. hffiran tn totter. It was be Forty doctors and between 20 and 30 nurses were sent to the storm area from Minneapolis under direction of the American Red Cross. At 9 p.

rn- Edward Gates, Minne-rhanter Red Cross secretary, peton into North Dakota areas. ing uprooted. He abandoned tne tree and ran. He, too, was thrown crews. The Northern States Power Co.

reported between 20 and 25 power poles down between Coon Rapids and Anoka. Three crews with a total of 30 men worked through the night to make repairs, and company officials said they hoped serv. ice would be re-established 4rt ground. nouse mere. Many of the storm victims were to be sent to Minneapolis, to be housed temporarily in the national guard armory for redistribution to Minneapolis hospitals.

Direct telephone service to Anoka was down, and with it the tell lino to Fargo. Company officials said word had come from Anoka The. storm passed. Small and The toll line went out when a barn at Maple Grove, southwest of Anoka, was picked up by the storm and hurled against five telephone poles. The telephone sent a portable light' plant to Anoka to nicked themselves UP riiAMPi lvTh wronc-side-un cabin pictured here was ripped that there was no need for additional medical or nursing aid.

Some Neither was seriously Injured. high in the air. A nearby windmill was toppled and demolished. doctors also went up of their own Neither was the merry-go-round. volition.

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