The Salt Lake Tribune from Salt Lake City, Utah • 17

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MORE TORNADO COVERAGE B-23 August 12 1999 I The 01 ft DELTA CENTER PI 4 Frantic Visitors Look for Friends Amid the Rubble BY RAY RIVERA I) 0 4 tot THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Scott Nelson quickly realized a folding table was no Kansas cellar as he saw his only shelter fly away "I felt I don't know alone" he said "My only real thought was where are my friends" Nelson of Murray was looking for friends who were in town setting up for an outdoor retailers convention when a tornado unexpectedly struck Within seconds the giant tent pavilion on the corner of 300 West and South Temple was reduced to skeletal rafters "The roof just ripped away like tissue" said Nelson who called it a miracle that he suffered only a few cuts as deadly debris swirled around him Others weren't so lucky At least one person was killed as a steel beam crumpled atop him and dozens more were injured The storm which cut a destructive swath through several downtown blocks hit hardest in the heart of the convention district where hundreds of visitors gathered for the annual Outdoor Retailer Summer Market In the aftermath downtown was a wrecking yard of twisted metal splintered and uprooted trees overturned trucks and downed power lines The Wyndham Hotel which had ail 381 rooms filled for the convention was a checkerboard of blown-out windows forcing it to close indefinitely In the hours after the storm hotel employees scrambled to find rooms for displaced guests The 19900-seat Delta Center home of the Utah Jazz lost parts of its roof The parking lot outside Dee's Family Restaurant at 143 North Temple which lost most of its roof was a graveyard of abandoned cars their windows shattered Shivering wrapped in a blanket and nursing a cut arm Nicole Stoddart was still shaken hours after the storm She and her sister Ashlee had been headed west on North Temple in their blue Toyota Tercel and just turned south onto 200 West when they encountered "a wall of black smoke and explosions" ahead of them Paul FraughtonThe Sail Lake Tribmn Grounds surrounding the state Capitol are littered with branches and fabric ripped from a tent that was supposed to house the Outdoor Retailer show six blocks away WEST DOWNTOWN Sun Club One of 1st Victims Damaged on Owner's Birthday BY SHAWN FOSTER THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE It was Sharon Strickler's 51st birthday And it was the day the bar she owns was blown apart by a tornado "We used to have what we liked to call the prettiest patio in town" said Strickler owner of the Sun Club a popular dance bar on Salt Lake City's west side "The whole second story is gone on half of the building but it could have been a whole lot worse" The tornado could have touched down during the birthday bash that was planned for Wednesday evening Instead six employees were at the bar setting up for the party the afternoon of the twister One worker was injured not seriously But the employees' cars parked outside the building at 200 South and 700 West were covered with bricks from the roof and the back patio was buried in lumber "If you want to see the rest of the roof" said Karen Blackwood See SUN CLUB Page B-2 Ryu CalbraithThc Sail Lake Tribune See VISITORS Page B-3 Rescue workers load a tornado victim into an ambulance near the wreckage of a truck Chronology of Tornado Damage yj If ve -TA I cy WT6m Ave jljlj f( )i4fterxS' i IvNv Yfc rr- 1 i 13th Ave GJt-iV 1 600N Capitol 1 J--- 12th Ave UJ I i CGT 10thAve I A JjOr 9mA I JL 1 SAn? 8hAve- I I Outdoor I 300 nDi I 611 Ave' I Triad Retailer Li'LLJ Hospital sthAve Fj ZT iJSj i Biisl II Depot i Temple I I i tBLM 1 '-Xii ityoos-' 0 'JjLiL ITCOD iLki55i -J i JtiWiMr" Delta I I "Vl-! 200S TlH I Center I Li -Sfsali I i I 1 I Sun Hotel THE AVENUES Dozens of Damaged Homes Residents Are Unscathed BY BRENT ISRAELSKN TtlE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Wreckage and downed trees strewn about him 18-year-old John Home walked somberly down 18th Avenue holding in his cupped hands a quail whose leg was broken and bleeding Home carried the creature home and put it in the freezer to put it out of its misery Miraculously the wild bird was the sole casualty in the northwestern Ave nues where a tornado tore a path of destruction never seen before in this posh part of town In a matter of minutes dozens of homes were damaged by the twister's high winds which uprooted stately trees like weeds sent branches flying into windows blew off roofs blew down utility poles and Littered the area with materials from downtown construction projects Worst hit was the home of LaMar Smith on 18th Avenue it appeared to be a near-total loss The entire roof of the home which Smith built 40 years ago was ripped off with parts blown about 200 feet into the nearby foothills The south wall of Smith's home collapsed Into the living room a brick portion of which landed atop a piano and his favorite reading chair An 8-foot-long cabinet was blown from one side of the kitchen to the other smashing a dining table "Fortunately they weren't home at th time or they would have been ecriously Injured or killed" aid Smith's son Kevin Smith LaMar Smith 79 and his wife Glorya Schow returned home shortly after the tornado struck but were too shaken to talk to reporters They later were visited by a neighbor Gov Olrnn Walker who was surveying the damage by helicopter when aha iked to land In the upper Avmu "Torre was nothing I cao do downtown Mtj ba 1 TEMPLE SQUARECAPITOL Couple Wed in Temple's Quiet While Storm Rages Outside BY PEGGY FLETCHER STACK and BRANDON LOOMIS THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Like many brides and grooms Kristie and Richard Gurgel paid the weather little mind In fact they failed to notice any unusual wind Wednesday as they exchanged marital vows in the LDS Temple in Salt Lake City But friends and family gathered for the 1 pm ceremony were not nearly so distracted They watched in wonder as huge chunks of debris flew by the temple windows It was only when the newlyweds left the temple for traditional photos on the grounds that they learned a tornado had hit the area The impending destruction was far more obvious to the nearly 1000 construction workers clinging to the walls of the church's new Assembly Building across North Temple The crew watched the twister approaching from the west and had time to dive inside the granite-sided structure Iron workers Torrey Clawson and Bill Barlow were on a hydraulic lift working on the second story of the building's west side when they saw the stoma approaching popping electrical transformers along the way They had about two minutes to get Inside where they ducked to miss flying toolboxes "By the time it hit the job site it was at least half a block wide" Barlow said The winds twisted tower crane until 1U boom fell on top of the Assembly Building Fortunately Clawson said his friend who operates that crane was late getting back from lunch and was not in It The storm also mangled scaffolding around the building though there appeared to be no structural damage "The roof flexed about a foot and then came back when the crane boom hit It)" Clawson See ASSEMBLY BUILDING Pge B-2 Sim Bat fcdd Advm Th Sri Jtm Mu Templo and skimming Into oonstnrton Me ot fr LDS Churtiis new AssomWy Hiil Wind! 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