St. Cloud Times from Saint Cloud, Minnesota • Page 1

Light storm damage to area crops, farms8A Additional Melrose storm damage pictures6A Retracing killer storms' path of destruction1 A Clear to partly cloudy tonight and Friday. Low tonight mid-50s. High Friday around 80. Winds light and variable tonight. Sunset 7:50 p.m.

Sunrise: 6:42 a.m. Sept. 4, 1980 Partly Cloudy I 2 to Ctonad Daily Ttme nir a m. St. Cloud, Minnesota 56301 Minnesota Sfiim THURSDAY 1980, St.

Cloud Newspapers, Inc. Damage, no injuries in Melrose twister By DAMON DARLIN Time Staff Writer MELROSE "Just like that and you're out of business," said Olaf Becker, looking at his flattened gas station. A tornado had just ripped through this small western Stearns County town Wednesday evening. His Amoco station on Main Street probably received the most damage, but civil defense authorities here said about 40 houses were damaged in the town of about 2,300 residents. The tornado blew off roofs, broke windows, uprooted trees and knocked down power lines when it struck about 6:50 p.m.

M.J. Klaphake, Melrose civil defense director, said sirens alerted residents five minutes before the winds hit, giving people a chance to seek shelter. No one was injured. "It was just like a regular training he said. The tornado, first sighted near Greenwald and Meire Grove several miles south of town, hit the southwest corner of Melrose, swept diagonally across town and exited on the northeast corner.

One resident, Mildred Salzman said the roar of the wind sounded like a couple of freight trains roaring through town. She and others described it as a funnel rolling like a barrel, sucking up debris and spewing it in every direction. J' 120th Year 71 "We warned the neighbors and the kids and then watched it ourselves," she said, as residents flocked to the streets to catalog damage minutes after the winds and heavy rains passed from the area, heading toward St. Cloud. Dillo Hinnenkamp, who lost two large trees in his front yard, said he watched the storm from his porch and jumped in his car to drive away from the tornado as it struck.

Damage to his home, with windows blown out, was typical. His neighbor fared worse. Almost the entire roof was torn from the house. Utility workers began restoring power to the town about 8:15 p.m. "This isn't the best time to be in the insurance business," joked two men sweeping glass off the street.

Down the street, Gary Hinnenkamp had a tree uprooted in his back yard and a two-by-four driven through the wall of his home by the wind. "There were rain gutters wrapped around telephone poles," he said as he started cleaning up the yard. The garage of his neighbor, Gerry Frieler, had been flattened by the tornado as Frieler and his family huddled in the basement of their home. The roof landed in Hinnenkamp's back yard. A can of red paint that had been sitting in the garage before the storm was thrown against the side of Hinnenkamp's house by the wind.

Much of the damage was along First hi Times photo by Mike Knaak Copyright Times photo by Mike Knaak A tornado blew out the brick walls of the leaving debris on the Amoco station in Melrose Wednesday night, standing in one of the Avenue East and in downtown Melrose. who was in the center of town as the tornado struck, said he saw a family in a station Wagon driving down Main Street. The tornado's low pressure caused the car's windows to explode, he said. The family was not injured. He also saw the roof of Becker's station lifted straight up in the air 500 feet.

"It hung in the air like a newspaper and then landed on the pumps," Klaphake said. "The signs crumpled like toothpicks." Becker, with tears welling in his eyes, poked through the remains of the station he said he ran off and on since 1945. He was in his home a few blocks away when the storm hit. "I -knew it was going to hit something," he said hollowly. Another resident watched the tornado suck water out of the Sauk River.

After the storm passed, residents began sawing trees and branches, and bulldozers began clearing rubble. Windows of the downtown grocery store and other buildings were covered with plywood. Officials wanted the streets clear for emergency vehicles and clean-up crews. There was little fear of looting. "After it gets dark you can't trust anybody though," a civil defense worker said.

"Overall, we were pretty lucky," one said. One dead, damaoe Cloud high in St. 1 A Gannett Newspaper 25 cents driveway and a van garage stalls. ..,1 knew the storm was near. So she covered Christopher with her body and screamed.

At the top of the stairs, Dave heard the yell and took "two big steps" to a foyer at the halfway point on the stairs. "The wind blew me into the basement," he said. Glancing at Patti, he added, "If you hadn't screamed I would be dead." After the wind started to scatter debris around the basement, Patti scurried to a room the Olsens use as an office, where she huddled with Christopher. Crawling on the floor, groping for Patti and the baby in Olsons10A index Advice 6D Births 5B Bulletin Board 5B Classified 4C-9C Comics 7D Deaths 5B Editorial 4A Markets 10C People 1B Sports 1D Four Sections 7 I i By Times Staff Writers A tornado tore into the southwestern part of the metropolitan area Wednesday evening, leaving millions of dollars in property damage, scores of families homeless, several people injured and one child dead. The unusual September storm sent thousands of people to huddle in their basements and other shelters.

"We were sitting in the living room, and all of a sudden the windows blew out and the lights went out," said Susan Jorgens. "I was trying to grab the kids, but I couldn't find the baby right away." Jorgens made it to the main floor of her apartment building, Sundial II, with her children and neighbors huddled in the hall as a tornado roared overhead at 7:30 Wednesday night. Within minutes, they were homeless, along with scores of other people from Waite Park and Bel Clare Acres Mobile Home Park southwest of St. Cloud. By 9:30 p.m., a child was fatally injured, several others were hurt and hundreds of people had been evacuated to Bel Clare Acres and Angus Acres, a Waite Park housing development.

Electric power was out, natural gas lines had been turned off and emergency workers were harriedly trying to sift through rubble despite additional disruption from sightseers. Nineteen Waite Park buildings, including five apartment buildings and a church, were destroyed or seriously damaged. Thirteen mobile homes at Bel Clare Acres were destroyed. Authorities were hard pressed to put a value on property damage by late this morning, but preliminary estimates were about $2 million to $4 million in St. Cloud and $1.5 million in Waite Park.

Amy Hennen, 15-month-old daughter of Ron and Tina Hennen, Bel Clare Acres, died at St. Cloud Hospital from injuries suffered in the storm. Storm1 OA Vu1 and severely damaging 19 buildings. The Olsons' house is gone, except for two rooms, according to Patti's husband, Dave, 30. Many of their neighbors in the middle-income suburb of about 100 homes also were hit.

The Olsens heard tornado warnings around 7:30 p.m. and Patti took Christopher to the lower level of their $75,000 bi-level home. Dave looked for funnels from upstairs. "Everything I've heard about tornadoes has been that the rain stops and it's quiet before it hits," Dave said. "But this one just blew through the rain." Patti, who had been through a similar tornado in 1968, said the sounds seemed familiar and she A tornado ripped through Angus Acres in Waite Park Wednesday night i 1 causing at least $1.5 million in losses By MARY LAHR Times Regional Editor Eleven-month-old Christopher Olsen dozed in his mother's arms as she talked about the tornado that robbed her of her home in Angus Acres Wednesday.

"It sounded like trains," said Patti Olsen, her voice shaking. Then the windows started popping and the roof came in and everything flew around. In less than a minute it was gone." Patti, 28, muffled a sob in her hands as neighbors from the ravaged area of Waite Park crowded around her at the Waite Park American Legion late Wednesday evening. If you hadn't screamed I'd be dead' In the Times TODAY PRIMARY '80 A voter's guide highlighting next Tuesday's primary election races along with a list of area polling places may be found in today's Times. See pages 1C through 3C.

Twisters on Division9A Where to get help9A Baby dies in storm1 OA Relief agencies busy7A.