MPR’s Dale Connelly interviews Peggy Hawkins, who witnessed the tornado that struck Roseville. Hawkins was in the parking lot of Target as storm struck, and describes a destructive scene.
Known later by various names ("Har Mar Tornado," "Lake Harriet Tornado," or "Edina Tornado"), the F3 tornado was the most significant to hit the Twin Cities since the 1965 Fridley Mounds-View tornadoes. The path of the June 14, 1981 tornado was continuous for 15 miles over a 26-minute period. One of the hardest hit areas was the Har Mar Mall area. While the mall itself escaped serious damage; other businesses and homes in the area were hit hard.
Transcripts
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SPEAKER 1: We're just on our way into the storm. We're looking at the clouds and how fast they were moving.
SPEAKER 2: Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 1: And stopped at the front door. And I said, I think that looks like a funnel cloud. The person I was with said, well, it's not skinny enough. And I said, well, OK. He said, well, we'll just stay here and watch it for a while. And we could see a blue halo of where electrical lines were coming down.
SPEAKER 2: Electrical lines coming down from the tornado. So it was on the ground then.
SPEAKER 1: Yes. And we could see all these blue in the distance. We thought it was quite a ways away. And we looked at each other. We better get out of here fast. And I was amazed how quickly it came. Because by the time we ran to the car and drove not out of the parking lot, it hit.
So we were very fortunate, because if we had been where we were parked in the car, all the cars around there were damaged. Everybody lost windows. The windows were out of the store. A lot of people were getting injured.
SPEAKER 2: But it doesn't sound like the tornado was on the ground, when it got to the Target store.
SPEAKER 1: Well, the lines were down. We couldn't drive out of the parking lot.
SPEAKER 2: Oh, you couldn't get out of the lot?
SPEAKER 1: No. We tried a couple different routes. What was the scariest is when the tree started going by. Metal was flying by. And there were trees flying by us.
SPEAKER 2: Flying right in front of your car?
SPEAKER 1: Oh, yes. Just flying right by. I've seen branches come down before. But I've never seen whole trees go right by.
SPEAKER 2: With their roots intact. Just lifted right up out of the ground.
SPEAKER 1: Well, the trunk part. It wasn't branches. It was tree.
SPEAKER 2: Amazing. And those trees, I assume, landed someplace and did some damage as well.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah. There weren't many cars around that didn't have a lot of damage and all the windows out. There were people that were hurt. It was pretty bad.
SPEAKER 2: Are you still frightened?
SPEAKER 1: Yeah. I'm shook up. And I guess the main reason I called was I'd been listening earlier and heard people say that, they hadn't seen any power lines down. And we had to take several alternative routes to get home.
SPEAKER 2: To avoid the power lines.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah. Well, I live about half a block or maybe about three blocks from where it hit to. So it is in a direct line where we were trying to get back.