Dave and I started reliving our stories about where we were. We've both talked about it before, but it's still something amazing to talk about. My parents live just north of town, and our home wasn't damaged, in fact it was only sprinkling at our house when the tornado was hitting town. Weird, huh? Here's my story:
The day of the tornado was my sister Elyssia's 20th birthday (Happy 30th Birthday today, Leishy!!!!). We had driven up to Minnetonka to take her to Famous Dave's for lunch since she was going to Crown College at the time. We drove back down to St Peter and I went into town to go tanning. I was heading down to Arizona for spring break to hang out with my family down there that next week. So I went tanning at 5:00 pm, and on my way home I considered stopping by my friend Brock's house to see him. I decided against it and headed home. I remember the air being really humid and a little hazy. Weird for March.
About 20 minutes after I got home, my mom and I heard the sirens going off in town. Of course we walked over to their large picture windows facing town to see what in the heck was going on. All we could see was what looked like a large cloud coming down over town. My dad slept through the storm, and my sister was north of town working. We went and woke my dad up and decided to head into town to see if there was any damage from the storm.
As we drove into town, we saw lots of trees down and we wondered if straight line winds had hit. As we drove along we hit a line of traffic as we got close to the McDonalds. We had a view down Main Street and words wouldn't even describe the devastation we saw. We decided to turn up the road next to McDonalds, and as we drove past I saw a boat crashed into the back of my friend Justin's truck. That's when I knew it was something bigger than straight line winds. We drove past our neighbors, my friend's parents, and they mentioned that they were afraid because she had decided to hang out at her boyfriend's house in town that day. They couldn't get to her with all of the damage. We told them that we would try to get over there because we were going to make sure our other friends were okay.
We drove back out to our house and grabbed chainsaws and cell phones (this back in the day when cell phones were in briefcases - hee hee). My sister was back from work at that time, so we all headed back into town together. We decided to park up at the high school since it had a view of the entire town from the top of the hill. We were dumbfounded when we saw the football field. The bleachers were mangled into heaps of metal, and strewn about the football field. We met up with a bunch of people we knew at the high school, and I saw my classmate Mark there. I started crying when I saw the devastation of the town below. You never imagine something like this could happen.
We started making our way down to our friends' houses on 169 (Main Street), and were amazed at how different the town looked with the houses gone. I found myself a little lost multiple times on the way down. I found my neighbor/friend and let her know her parents were looking for her. A tree was on her car, so there was no way she was going to get home that way. I gave her the cell phone to try to call her parents, but by then the phone lines were jammed and we couldn't get calls in or out. I kept making my way down, and we got to my parent's friends' house which was extremely damaged. It looked like an abandoned house, there was so much missing from their house.
These people lived 1 block away from my friend Brock's house (remember from the beginning of my story?), so I decided to head over there. By the time I got to his house it was dark, but I could see with my flashlight the extensive damage to their beautiful Victorian home. If you've ever been to St Peter, there is a gorgeous blue Victorian home on the west side of 169. That was their house. I was so glad that I decided against stopping by on my way home from tanning. There was extensive damage to their house as well.
The next few days were strange. I went to my friend Abby's house and found their house missing its front side and roof. It was like looking at a dollhouse. We tried to salvage what we could, and I unloaded their dishwasher for them. Those were the only dishes that they had left. My friend Van drove over from Wisconsin, and we drove up to the cemetary on top of the hill to clean up what we could. I also remember that we went down to Patrick's later in the day for a free lunch. My friend Brock ended up moving into a few different houses, and my best friend Robin and I got to spend lots of time with him because at one point he lived in the apartments across from her house.
I still went to Arizona, and even considered staying a little longer than originally planned because we ended up having 2 weeks off of school while they tried to figure out what in the heck to do with all of us because the high school had damage to it as well. I came home when I was planning to, and spent a lot of time during those weeks off with my friends, and helping with the clean up effort. Sometime during those weeks, we were called to the high school to clean out our lockers, because there would be no more classes in that school for the rest of the school year.
They ended up splitting the high school students into two groups. The 7th-9th graders went to the elementary school, while the 10th-12th graders went to the intermediate school. The little kids went to school from 7:30-11:30, while us high schoolers went to school from 12 noon-4:30. I was taking post-secondary classes at Gustavus, though, so I got out of school around 3:45 every day. I have to say that my senior year was most memorable because of this. My friends and I spent lots of late nights hanging out, and sleeping in wasn't just for the weekends anymore. I helped lead a senior prank that I got in loads of trouble for (but that's a different story for a different day), and even got to be the special "natural disasters" speaker at graduation.
I scanned in some pictures that I had from the scrapbook my mom made me for graduation:
The view of the bandroom from where I sat every day (I played trombone)
Locker Clean Out Day with my friends and some of my sister's classmates
My friend Emily standing at the high school overlooking St Peter (previously there had been trees galore in town. I think that was my saddest memory - looking out over town and there being no more trees)
Saying good-bye to my trashcan and water fountain (my locker was next to them - I'm a geek, I know). And yes, I had a shaved head in high school and this was my hair growing back out.
Jonny would always steal the comfy teacher's chair in English class while the rest of us sat in miniature desks (b/c we were in an elementary/intermediate school)
7 comments:
Hi Rachel,
It was really interesting reading your version of that day. Mine was a little bit less involved but I remember that day none the less. I lived in Champlin at the time and was working in Maple Grove. Alison was only 2 years old! I remember we had some really bad weather in Maple Grove and we were told to evacuate to the hallways. My dad is a big weather buff just like I am still to this day so I called him to tell him what was going on and then he told me what was happening in St Peter! It was really frightening. A few days after the tornado hit I remember Alison and I coming down to see my parents and coming into the north part of town on 169 and I just could not believe it. It looked like a completely different place. It really is amazing how different a town can look without trees. I started crying, it was just very overwhelming to see so much gone.
People think I am a little goofy when the sirens go off now or when there is bad weather announced on the radio or TV. They think I am strange for taking it so seriously...but I always tell them IT CAN HAPPEN.
Rachel,
I can't remember exactly where I was, but I would have been studying for my finals in my 3rd year of Physiotherapy school. I'm glad that's all done!!
The weather here in Newfoundland is absolutely awful, at times, but at least we don't have to worry about those type of problems. The worst we get is 10 feet of snow in a few days! But I guess a 6 month long winter is not that bad.
Renee
I remember it through the eyes of my good friend Adam that was attending Gustavus at the time. I would travel from Burnsville frequently to see him and hang out and I remember all the trees on campus and how beautiful it was. After the tornado, I went to see him again and the town was just sad. Homes were missing, others demolished, some just trying to hang on. The trees on campus were missing, as well as, all the trees around town. Such a sad day for the community. :) ~ Cassie
Hi Rach,
Your mother remembers you and I watching for the tornado out the picture window and when we finally thought we saw the clouds swirling we headed for the basement. I remember things hitting our house but no damage. I remember how hard it was driving to Waseca everyday for my job when there was so much to be done at home.
Hey Rach-
That will be a day that will never be forgotten. That afternoon I headed up to Grand Rapids, MN with Pam and we were going to look at a school up there and before we left it was so weird as the temps were so warm and humid and up north it was a lot cooler. Didn't think anything of it and headed out of town. When we got to the Hutchinson area it was raining and the temps had already fallen quite a bit and near St.Cloud it was snowing. So we took it a little slower than normal and mom asked me to call her when we got there. So we got to Grand Rapids and it was snowing really hard. I had tried to call my mom, grandma, sister, aunts and uncles any one and all the lines were busy. That is when I looked at Pam and said "I bet there was a tornado". Not knowing that there was because I hadn't had any contact with anyone yet. So after trying for 30 minutes to try and get a hold of someone I went to the cop shop in GR and asked them if they knew of anything that had happened in St. Peter because all the phone lines were busy, they said there were storms that went though but nothing too bad. So I just figured a bad thunder storm. A few more hours went by and still couldn't get a hold of anyone so I called the neighbor at the cabin (in GP) to see if she could get through and she couldn't either. Finally at 2am my mom called the hotel and got through to me to let me know that everyone was OK and there had been a really bad tornado and Dave and Mary (my aunt and uncle) had lost there home but they were all fine. All I wanted to do was get in the car and head home but Pam and I took the tour of the school and headed home right afterwards. When we came into town we were stopped by guards asking to see our ID's because they were only letting people that lived in the town get into the town. Got home to mom and dads and nothing had happened there but about a half mile away (or even that) is where my aunt and uncle lived. We went to see there house and like Rach said it looked like a doll house. The front was all ripped off and there was hardly anything left. We went out to my grandma's and she just had some tree's down over the driveway. Dad went out and picked her up as she had no power because all the lines were down and over her drive so of course they had to be careful! A few other family members that lived out on or near the Fort Road just had some trees down and nothing major which we were thankful of. It was amazing to see what can happen in a matter of seconds.
Rach when you have time I would love to see what your mom put together for you!
Colleen
I am from Mankato and was traveling in Kentucky at the time. The storm made the national news, I heard about it from the TV in my grandfather-in-law's house.
A close friend of mine was one of the first paramedics in town after the tornado; she just happened to be passing through and stopped to help out. I miss the trees too - driving from Mpls to Mankato has not been the same.
Hi, Rachel -
Being a Freshman Gustie at the time, we were all very fortunate that Spring Break fell right at that time. God was definitely looking out for us. I was at my now in-laws house in Arlington at the time it hit and they were trying to coerce their son, Mike, not to go back to Mankato for school that night due to the weather. Of course, he left anyway (and made it safely) but we were ears glued to the radio all night.
I remember trying to go back to Gustavus in the days following. I even got lost as I entered town because the streets were unrecognizable. I finally got to campus but was stopped by Police at campus. It was really frustrating that they allowed students from other schools and individuals from the cities to come and clean up (who also stole from us) and none of us were able to participate in the cleanup.
The devastation was amazing. When they finally let us return there was no carpet in any building, including our dorms. There were many boarded up windows, large ventilation hoses (kind of seemed like being in ET), lots of exposed wiring and you would still find glass everywhere. A piece of tile from the ceiling fell on my head one day when I closed my dorm room door!
All classroom schedules changed (I even had a Saturday 8am!) and FEMA trailers were moved in. But the two best things I remember afterwards, was 1. the glorious weather that we had that spring. No one wanted to be stuck inside with boarded up windows. We always took to the grass to study (sometimes in our bikinis - I burned my butt one day). And 2. because all computers were damaged, we now had NO papers to write! Finals were a breeze!
It's amazing to see how much the town and campuses have come together to rebuild. St. Peter will always be an amazing time in my life.
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