Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 11

TUESDAY, MARCH 31 1998 In tho tornadoes' wako STAR TRIBUNE PACE Al STORMSyromAl Severe tornadoes since 1950 Sur vivors begin job of picking through mountains of wreckage KEY F5 F-4 F-3 The map on the left shows the locations of an the most dangerous tornadoes, including Sunday's. Grading tornadoes (mph): The Fujita-Pearson scale F-0 Light 40-72 F-l Moderate 73-112 F-2 Significant 113-157 F-3 Severe 158-206 F4 Devastating 207-260 F-5 Incredfole 261-318 Dead Injured 0 0. 0 0 13 0 0 NoblesMurray 2 6 ParleBig Stone 0 8 yarn still in its packaging. "It's just about wiped me out," Chuck Brinker said. "We deal in small lots, and profits haven't been too good." The tornado sent the yarn Dying when it decapitated the third-story of the Brinkers' warehouse building.

"This is the only income for the whole family brothers and sisters and mother and father and about 20 employees," said their daughter, Pat Brinker Johnson. "That was our warehouse, our livelihood." The storm's final broad assault occurred at 6 p.m., when a smaller tornado bashed Le Center. "The Fire Department told me that the sirens went off, the power failed and the the sirens lost power all in about two minutes, so no one had much time to prepare," said Mayor Gary Factor. Even so, only two injuries both minor were reported, he said. Factor's car wash was one of at least a half-dozen businesses wrecked by the winds.

The car wash "needs a bulldozer," he said. "Just as sheer speculation, I'm thinking $1.5 to $2 million damage in the city limits" in a city of only 2,000 residents. At the city's south-side industrial park, "virtually every building down there was badly damaged or destroyed," Factor said. Five businesses with 200 to 250 employees are shut down for now. "It will take 90 days before the businesses are up and running," Factor said.

West of town, several large grain bins flew one-eighth mile from a farm, landing- on a mechanic's shop. Five minutes earlier, Mark Shippman and his fiancee, Brandy Smith, had left the building to get parts he needed to fix his truck. The building and the truck were destroyed. Shippman and Smith still plan to get married Friday. "Yeah, we're still going to do that," Shippman said.

"We've put it off long enough." Staff writers Susan HoganAlbach and John Windrow and the Associated Press contributed to this report. getting dark, so we came back," Diane Lacy said. "It was getting darker and darker, and then we heard on the radio that the storm was east of Nicollet. My dad said, 'This is getting They dashed for the basement. "We just huddled there, and maybe a half-minute later it was light," she said.

The house was gone. "It's kind of hard to realize what my house looked like at one time, but it was a two-story job," Gary Lacy said. "It sucked the second floor right out and it went north against my neighbor's house. The roof just collapsed on the first floor. But the doghouse is intact." John Gerlach was using a chain saw to free his crushed cherry-red Chevy pickup truck flattened by a tree just one month and 1,000 miles after he bought it.

"We heard a hellacious crash against the house, and I knew something terrible was going on," he said. "We just didn't know what. These houses and these trees have been here almost 100 years and nothing ever happened, and you sort of think that it won't. It was kind of a false sense of security." Downtown, business owners struggled to open or to see if they had anything worth salvaging. At the Arrow Ace Hardware store, the wind had barely died before owner Dave Neiman started handing out chain saws, flashlights (nearly 300 of them) and plastic sheeting through the store's shattered front windows.

He was still at it Monday afternoon. "We just told them to come back and pay us later," he said. "We had several come in today saying, 'We got two yellow flashlights Sometimes they don't know what they were. So we said, 'Tell us what you think they're In the heart of town, gaily colored balls of yarn were festooned on tree limbs and cracked two-by-fours, blown northward as much as three blocks from Mary Lue's St Peter Woolen Mill. Owners Chuck and Mary Lue Brinker and their grown daughter were trying to gather up any of the Miles 0 75 MINNESOTA Twin Cities peter Center Comfrey (f 1 1 1 ft The twisters of March Date i I March 18, 1968 March 20, 1991 I March 21.

1953 March 25, 1981 i March 26, 1921 March 27, 1905 Source: National Weather Service spent the night trying to contain an oil spill as well as cap a tank that was spraying toxic liquid fertilizer. About 50 National Guard troops sealed off the town, allowing residents only an hour Monday to return home to snatch what possessions they could find. Mike pulled his pickup truck up to his house, which had the roof ripped off and the dining room wall blown down. A desk and bookcase were among the few possessions family members could salvage. "This is just stuff," he said.

"We're lucky to be alive." Whellacious crash After the tornado left Comfrey, twisters touched down in Hanska, Courtland and Nicollet. Damage was relatively light, but Mosenden was seriously injured when the tornado hit his home. And bad as things were in Comfrey, they were immeasurably worse when a tor- County Watonwan" Faribault Stearns Morrison Lac Qui clear away thousands of shattered trees and began clearing city streets, the recovery machinery of the state and federal government started up. Gov. Arne Carlson said he expected to send a request for disaster aid to the federal govern- -ment within a week.

State legislators began considering a disaster-aid package. Three officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) came to the stricken area to inspect damages, as did representatives of state agencies. When Carlson visited St. Peter residents Monday afternoon, he assured them, "Whatever can be done to provide comfort and help will be done." The tornado was as rare as it was destructive. Before Sunday, only six other tornadoes had occurred during March in Minnesota's recorded history.

And it was "really a monster," said Todd Krause, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Chanhassen. "It was a mile and a quarter wide, on the ground for at least 15 miles and possibly 30 or 40 miles." Wirid speeds were as high as 200 miles an hour, according to the Weather Service, which received a total of 16 touchdown reports. Sunday's first tornado touched down at 3:23 p.m. in Nobles County, damaging a few houses in the hamlet of Lismore. But the storm that was spawning the funnel clouds didn't get truly nasty until it dropped one on Comfrey at 4:35 p.m.

"It's like a bomb went off," said Kevin Finstad, 40, a firefighter from New Ulm who was helping with cleanup Monday. Almost every building in town has been damaged or completely wrecked. The town's 420 residents were evacuated in three buses Sunday night, as firefighters Louis Mosenden. 85. of HansVa died Monday afternoon as a result of injuries suffered when a tornado hit his home.

He had been in the critical care unit at Immanuel St. Joseph's-Mayo Health System in Mankato since Sunday night with multiple injuries. Dustin Schneider, 6, was killed when he was sucked out the side window of a van in which he was riding during the storm. It happened about a mile outside of St. Peter, near the farmhouse of Bill and Peggy Lambert, who survived the tornado huddled with their three children under a table in their basement.

Surveying her ruined home and referring to Dustin's death, Peggy said of the damage to her home, "This is nothing it really isn't. I'm just glad to be alive." She was combing her littered yard with neighbors and family members, hunting for "photos and things, baby pictures, wedding pictures, baptismal gowns." Everything else was gone, carried away when the tornado roared over the house. "I had to hang onto my youngest daughter," she said. "The wind howled through the house. The kids were screaming.

Somebody was with us, that's for sure." When the entire house collapsed into the building's basement, a large wooden beam held up the roof section directly above the table. "It saved us," she said Similar scenes unfolded across south-central Minnesota Monday. As survivors picked through the wreckage of their possessions, they recounted the terrifying moments of Sunday. They talked in thunderstruck tones, awed and grateful that they had survived. 'Really a monster' As they started up chain saws to 51 hroughout Sunday afternoon big, I but not unusual, thunderstorms formed over central Minnesota and moved in three distinct waves to the northeast and across the Twin Cities.

Then, about 3 pm, just east of Sioux Falls, the deadly supercell formed. A convergence of cold air from the north, warm air from the southeast and dry air from the southwest triggered a Comfrey Bluest, a. -1 -1. i George St Horn St. Leota lismore A star Tribune graphic nado barreled into St.

Peter at 5:15 p.m. Except for a small neighborhood in the northwest corner of the city, almost none of St. Peter's 9,900 residents were spared: Wreckage was widespread in the downtown business district and at Gustavus Adolphus College. The local hospital was too badly damaged to stay open, as were three of the city's four schools. So many towering trees were flattened and shattered that several residents said the city's physical setting isn't even recognizable.

"When I came up out of that basement and looked around, I knew where I was, but I didn't see anything that I recognized," said Gary Lacy, a retired state trooper. "There's hardly a tree left in St. Peter. Our whole horizon is different than it used to be." Lacy and his daughter, Diane, had driven west out of town Sunday afternoon to catch a look at the approaching storm. "It was LE SUEUR COUNTY I I COUNTY i i CARVER i v- IX-- Scott COUNTY 1 1 icciictio i Lonsdale innesota path of destruction across southern i kWGTON COUNTY i.

I 1 1' 3 I I Chanhassen said there is no way to know exactly how many tornadoes formed during the storm, but meteorologist Greg Tipton said, "We suspect there were a number of tornadoes on the ground. Some of them traveled 30 to 60 to 100 miles on the ground, and they Center Espcis st SotoergSt. Tyrone StU Mrmesota St I--: Sharon St 9. -LakeviHe m- r- 'i DAKOTA COUNTY i violent updraft of warm, wet air that pushed the forming supercell thunderstorm to a height of 35,000 to 40,000 feet It began moving east at about 25 miles per hour, slower than the other storms. The entire supercell started rotating counterclockwise, and tornadoes seemed likely.

Within a half-hour, the destruction started National Weather Service experts in Comfrey: Scores of people without homes. Destroyed werelthe fre station, cafe, city haH, a church, a school and 14,000 gallon diesel fuel tank. COTTONWOOD COUNTY I Jeffers Storden Le Center rice Si COUNTY raconei i Farbault L.SL Peter Jm were strong tornadoes. BROWN COUNTY BLUE EAR' Comfrey Or St 0 i i 1 COUNTY couroand yj. CahiiSrlaX St Peter and 25 percent is is Center 25 mobile homes damaged; moved to high school several reported natural gas Two injuries, both released 'I 90 percent of 2ioO residences are damaged percent are destroyed: out of 125 businesses, 90 1 are damaged and $0 percent destroyed The hospital damaged and evacuated.

Gustavus Adophus College damaged, as are thee of the four schools. Wllmont NOBLES COUNTY, NortwieKT i i i i i i Le Center A Star south -y. An overturned RV, boats and on the north side of Le Center tornadoes. Le after 'leaks. Star Tribune graphic hy David Silk and Mark Boswell Peter North School St Peter School ao Central School Of- 9 -1 -i Co Cotlege I Tribune photos by David Brewster hi I fit if St Peter State Hospital (22) If --y Comfrey Aerial view of Comfrey Monday afternoon looking over the destruction left by Sunday's tornadoes.

debris strew with roof trusses show the destruction of Sunday's 4:35 p.m. A tornado slammed into 15:15 p.lll. A tornado was on County. Noth- the ground 15 miles another 25 northwest of Mankato pm, both then, three minutes later, I near Nicollet Comfrey in Brown mg was reported for minutes, then at 5 i 6:00 .111. A slightly smaller tornado (an F-2, with winds between 113 and 157 miles per hour), hit Le Center in Le Sueur County, i The super storm continued on, clumping hail on several towns, then at 620 pm dropped another i tornado on Lonsdale in Rice County, Weather Service experts were investigating the possibility that one last twister touched down -I near Little Chicago ri Dakota County.

5:50 p.m. Reports of high winds came from Le Sueur and at the same moment a half-mile-wide tornado measuring F-3 on the Fujrta-Pearson scale (rated "severe" with winds i between 158 and 206 i miles per hour) hit St Peter. 3:45 p.m. Three-inch hail was falling in Avoca, in Murray County, and at I 410 pm. a tornado hit farm-I houses and a church near Jef-I fersh Cottonwood County.

Two minutes later a tornado dam-j aged farms southeast of Stor-! den, then at 415 pm. slammed I into houses northwest of Delft moved by Chan- dler in Murray County. One-inch I hail but no tornado was re-! ported. At 335 another twister dropped from the storm, this time hitting near Leota At the same time a tornado was I reported in St Klan, also in Nobles County. 3:23 p.m.efrstfthe supercell tornadoes was on the ground, hitting the small town of Lismore in Nobles County.

Eight to twelve houses were damaged. Two minutes later, the tornado passed just east of Leota, and two minutes after that it passed by Wilmont Hanska in Brown County, and Cambria in Blue Earth County, reported twisters. Three minutes later a tornado hit Court-land, in Nicollet County..