June 17, 2010: 39 Minnesota Tornadoes in One Day

One year ago today, a huge string of storms tore up parts of Minnesota.

This house was picked up and moved by the storm. Those are
the front steps. The front door used to be right next to them. The
house moved, not the steps.

We're all very lucky there were only three deaths. The town of Wadena was hit hard - 232 homes of 4000 were destroyed or severely damaged. Farms were hit and emergency services had to follow the path of the storm from farm to farm to check on the well being of the people who may or may not have been home at the time.

That's the scariest to me - being trapped in your barn under stuff, being in a house without a basement - and no one knows you're there. There were stories of livestock picked up in the storm and found dead dropped onto roads and in fields.  Newly planted fields were wrecked with debris that would ruin expensive farm machinery - it had to be cleaned up before the crops were too tall, removed completely, and all that done without significant damage to the crops.

This was a house. The woman here was killed when the storm hit.
She didn't have a basement at her place.

I went to the closest coffee shop to use the Internet to find out what was happening in my hometown - hit hard with hail and less than 10 miles from several tornado touchdowns. Phones and cable internet may have been out, but "tethered" devices like smartphones and cell phones kept people in touch: who was accounted for, who was missing, and where is the flooding, hail, or wind damage.

So here's to good thoughts to last year's June 17 Tornado folk. You've made it through a year! It just gets better.

A funnel cloud dropping on a farm.

[Side Note: Solitude in the midst of life threatening danger is the cornerstone of the social phenomenon known as "Minnesota Nice" which breaks down to - never show negativity or dislike to anyone because at some point, your car might break down, you might be trapped in a snow drift, or a tornado may tear up your house, and you don't want the only other person in the middle of nowhere with you to dislike you. A society built that completely rejects "no" as a method of communication is a strange one, but someone will always hold the door open for you when your hands are full. You know you're in Minnesota when...you try to go for a walk and everyone stops to offer you a ride.]