MPR’s Stephen Smith reports on a tornado that touched down in Maple Grove during the July 23rd rainstorm that encompassed the Twin Cities. Smith interviews residents and the Maple Grove police chief.
Considered the Twin Cities “Superstorm,” the July 23-24, 1987 event dropped 9.15 inches at the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, and over 10 inches in suburbs west and southwest of Minneapolis. This rainfall cataclysm produced the worst flash-flooding on record in the Twin Cities.
STEVEN SMITH: Soon after the storm abated, Maple Grove residents began pounding plywood over shattered windows, and tacking huge sheets of plastic down on damaged roofs. Maple Grove officials say the storm ripped a gash about one-mile long and 2 and 1/2 blocks wide, with the most intense damage near the corner of Nathan Avenue and 107th Street.
Tom Wilkinson and his family took cover in the basement until the storm ripped apart his home and spread the roof out across the backyard.
TOM WILKINSON: We had a police scanner. And they told us to take shelter, cover because it was a tornado out in Champlin. And I didn't know it was this close.
STEVEN SMITH: And here, it hit your house.
TOM WILKINSON: We're standing around my house. My house is around us, I guess.
STEVEN SMITH: As they walked through the wreckage, Wilkinson and his family of three were dazed, but unhurt. Only half of the house still stands.
TOM WILKINSON: We just moved in the house the 15th of May. And we painted and wallpapered. And I was working on the deck. Now, you can see what's left. Nothing.
STEVEN SMITH: This housing development is about a decade old, middle class ranch and rambler style homes with big yards and small trees. The storm punched holes in roofs, flipped several camping trailers, and toppled garages. Jane Schadegg sent her three young children to the basement when the warnings first went off. She and her husband followed a few minutes later.
JANE SCHADEGG: All of a sudden, this winds, we could see wishing around the basement windows. And it just got more forceful and seemed to go around, and then we could hear all this ripping and tearing, and then it was done.
STEVEN SMITH: Observers said the destruction took less than a minute. All the windows in the Schadegg home shattered. And the brick chimney toppled over like a broken branch. The Schadeggs have lived in this north suburban neighborhood, 7 and 1/2 years.
JANE SCHADEGG: Well, I've always said we lived in Tornado Alley. We weren't home when the straight line winds went through the Champlin Plaza and took the mall and stuff. But then later on that summer, we did see a small tornado go down 109th that just took some trees out down there. But this first time, it hit us.
STEVEN SMITH: Dave Fisher and his family live half a block away.
DAVE FISHER: To begin with, the sky was green. We were watching that normally. And then we went in the house, when the wind picked up. And I looked out the back patio door. And I could see shingles flying over there. And I told the wife to get the kids and get in the crawlspace, which was underneath the kitchen. And I just got in there and the house lifted up and come back down.
And then I heard the rain falling. And I told her, I say, there ain't nothing left up there, because I can hear the water hitting the floor.
STEVEN SMITH: The roof of Fisher's two-story house got sucked away, and some of the walls peeled back, showing the inside rooms like an open-sided dollhouse. With a sadistic ironic delicacy, the storm left an antique style wash basin and pitcher intact on an upstairs dresser.
Some in the neighborhood reported seeing a funnel cloud. Others thought the damage was caused by straight line winds. Dave Fisher didn't know.
DAVE FISHER: My mother had called me on the phone. And I said, Mom, I see shingles flying. I'm gone. I hung the phone up. And I didn't wait around to see a funnel. You could see shingles swirling up there. And I just said, that's it, I'm gone.
SPEAKER: 103 to 1, 5. 3.
STEVEN SMITH: Maple Grove Police sealed off several blocks of the most damaged property to keep away looters and loiterers. Officials estimated at least $4 million in property damage, with some 10 homes virtually destroyed. But Maple Grove Police Chief Robert Burlingame said no serious injuries were reported.
ROBERT BURLINGAME: We had good warning. And people, apparently, took the warning to heed this time. The storm this evening took the same path as it did Monday night, when the sirens went off. So we were fortunate that we didn't have any injuries.
STEVEN SMITH: Burlingame and other officials said most of the residents left homeless, found shelter with neighbors, though, Red Cross officials were also on the scene to offer help. Burlingame said the storm traveled from Northwest to Southeast. Though, he didn't actually see the storm, the police chief says the wreckage tells the story.
ROBERT BURLINGAME: From what knowledge I've had of being in it, it appears to me that we had a twister from the way the structures are twisted and turned in different directions.
SPEAKER: They're down there, yet?
STEVEN SMITH: Much of the cleanup had to wait until this morning. Nightfall came to Maple Grove, and so did more storms. Heavy punishing rains resumed just hours after the brief damaging storm had passed through.
Police Chief Robert Burlingame asked the curious to remain home until this suburban neighborhood can patch itself back together again.
ROBERT BURLINGAME: We advise people to stay away. We've got enough problems. And they'll just clutter up the roads.
STEVEN SMITH: In Maple Grove, this is Steven Smith reporting.
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