St. Cloud Times from Saint Cloud, Minnesota • Page 7

Sept. 4, 1980 Daily Times, St. Cloud, Minn. 7 A Tornado tears through mobile home park 0)fq i Times photo by Steve Wo Members of the Rockville Fire and Rescue Squad tend to one of the people injured in Bel Clare Acres. in mmm II? W.

1 Jyi Legion offers relief to storm victims By SALLY THOMPSON and MARY LAHR Tlmst Staff Writer Waite Park's American Legion Post 428 became a hub of activity Wednesday night for people evacuated from Bel Clare Acres Mobile Home Park and Angus Acres. More than 175 people were ferried from their homes in the damaged areas to the Legion club beginning at about 9:30 p.m. by volunteers with vans, trucks and station wagons. At first, the Legion's back room was chaotic. Many of the early arrivals were shaking.

Babies and young children wore only diapers and T-shirts or pajamas and cried as they sought comfort from their pale, frightened parents. "Who's in charge here?" one of the storm victims asked. By about half an hour later, the scene was calmer. People sriacked on food and coffee as they sat in groups and talked over their experiences during the storm. People who brought their dogs tried hard to keep them in tow.

Legion auxiliary members, in the building earlier in the evening for a meeting, rushed to the Red Owl store for groceries, donated by the store management. They nastily perked coffee, made sandwiches and put out snacks and milk for the storm victims. By about midnight, many of the newly homeless had left to spend the night with friends or relatives. Those whose homes were not damaged returned to their neighborhoods. Throughout the evening Legion volunteers announced offers of lodging for the night.

A representative of the Central Minnesota Red Cross chapter was on hand to give assistance. Eight people spent the night at the Legion club, but only one, a child, slept, said Manager Fred Chaika. The adults couldn't sleep, he said, so they drank coffee and talked over the night's events. By early this morning, they left to survey their homes. The Red Cross operated canteens this morning at Bel Clare Acres and Angus Acres where emergency workers and residents got coffee and rolls, said Elizabeth Barringer, Red Cross chapter executive secretary.

There were many offers of housing to storm victims so that the Red Cross did not need to house people in motels, she said. In downtown St. Cloud, the Salvation Army Church on Seventh Avenue South stood ready to serve storm victims coffee and soup. It got no business, however, because storm victims were taken to the Waite Park Legion club. 1 Salvation Army volunteers delivered mattresses and blankets to the Legion club.

"We've got bedding here," Jerry Gohman, a past commander of the legion post, told a young man as he pointed at the pile of mattresses. "It's not the coziest place, "It's better than where I was," he answered. Storm victims and disaster officials alike complimented the Legion's swift aid to the storm victims. Linda Jernberg of Bel Clare Acres said she had forgotten to grab diapers for her baby when she and her husband left their undamaged home. Volunteers bought diapers for her girl.

A few storm victims also sought temporary refuge in the Waite Park Village Hall and at St. Joseph Church. "With the power out, neighborhood residents could find each other only by. using flashlights. In small knots, they gingerly stepped around their homes, here a flashlight beam showing a garbage can smashed against a house, there revealing a twisted swing set.i Northside residents cope with darkness I C3 By DAVE DALEY Times Staff Writer The world turned upside down Wednesday night for residents in a four-block area north of the Purity Dairy Foods building on St.

Cloud's north side. After the main storm passed overhead around 7:30 p.m., residents cautiously edged out of their homes to find their comfortable neighborhood a maze of twisted trees, downed power lines and darkened street lights. A car near the corner of Seventh Street and Eighth Avenue North lay crushed under a toppled tree. The same tree, roots twisted out of the raw earth, ruptured a gas line, and yellow-slickered firemen scurried from house to house, trying to find breaks. With the power out, neighborhood residents could find each other only by using flashlights.

In small knots, they gingerly stepped around their homes, here a flashlight beam showing a garbage can smashed against a house, there revealing a twisted swing set. But the worst part for some may have been not knowing how badly the storm had hit other areas of the city. Those with transistor radios passed on what little information they had. "Bel Clare Acres really got it bad," one T-shirted, elderly man told a neighbor. A house on the corner of Seventh Street and Eighth Avenue drew a lot of attention.

Two fire vehicles, headlights on, were parked nearby while firefighters searched the house, looking for a ruptured gas line. The smell of gas was strong and Times photo by Steve Wott Bob Thompson and Tom Hennen helped to clean up what was left of the trailer which firemen were brusque with several sightseers who wandered into the area, the red tips of lighted cigarettes visible in the darkness. "Hey! Put that cigarette out! We got a gas leak here," one yelled, his flashlight beam picking the smoker out of the darkness. A half hour after the storm had passed, the neighborhood still posed a danger as downed power lines trailed along the ground and hung from trees. Firefighters and volunteers with flashlights were directing people away from two darkened streets with downed power lines.

Ironically, the only injury in the neighborhood came an hour after the storm when two middle-aged women crashed their car into an overhanging tree at the corner of Seventh Street and Eighth Avenue. One suffered minor cuts to her head, according to a fireman at the scene. "I tried to stop them," a volunteer with a flashlight directing traffic at the corner said afterwards. "They just came through, going about 30 miles an hour and didn't even slow down." Toppled trees throughout the neighborhood made vehicle travel difficult. Cars snaked their way through the area, often only to find a downed tree stopping traffic.

Paradoxically, a half block north of the damaged neighborhood, street lights lit the rain-slicked tar roads and people could be seen inside, watching television, their world untouched by the storm. Hennen's brother, Ron, lived in. I 0 A WV. i' 1 Time photo by Tom Roster Sheriff officers check damage at Bel Clare Acres mobile home court. mr- it Kit yLjU FfrMr Jmm--f Ft Time photo by Steve Wolt Firemen from a number of v-1" communities searched IMIUUyil 1110 I UUUIU Wl Clare Acres in search of people trapped in the debris..