MPR's Mary Losure talked to kids at an afterschool daycare program for a child's eye view of the severe storm and tornado that hit St. Peter, Minnesota.
Frequently referred to as the 1998 Comfrey–St. Peter tornado outbreak, 14 tornadoes (including an F3 & F4) wrought destruction in southern Minnesota on March 29, 1998. More than 3,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed by the tornadoes. The towns of St. Peter and Comfrey were utterly devastated. Storms left two people dead and dozens injured.
MARY LOSURE: At the end of a gravel road, not far from the low brick buildings of the Minnesota Security Hospital on the outskirts of St. Peter, the daycare program has set up temporary quarters. A little after 12:00 noon, a school bus pulls up in front of a rustic wooden building in Irene Glick Memorial Park, and 19 kids hop out.
SPEAKER 1: Find a table and sit down. Leave your things until Katie gets in here. How are you? That's good.
MARY LOSURE: The kids after school program, normally held at their elementary school, has been displaced by afternoon classes for high school students whose own classrooms have been damaged by the tornado. Nearly every kid in this daycare program has a house damaged by the storm and vivid memories.
KENDALL: I saw the tornado. And I was looking out my basement window. It was like all gray and-- it was dirty. And I saw that. I saw a cat in the tornado. I'm like, oh my gosh, somebody's cat is going to be dead. It was like swirling around and it was just freaky.
MARY LOSURE: Even a week later, after all the cleanup, one look at the worst-hit parts of St. Peter, and you can easily picture the tremendous winds that world through the town like something out of a movie or a fairy tale. Kendall, a red haired seven-year-old with purple fingernails, seems to love the drama and like many children, blurs the line between reality and fantasy.
KENDALL: I ran upstairs, and the door was open. But my dad, he was just flying. He was holding onto the side of the door. And he's like, whoa! But then I hold it onto him really tight. And then I pulled the door shut. And I'm like, who.
MARY LOSURE: For seven-year-old Elizabeth also, the storm is a source of dramatic stories.
ELIZABETH: There's this one motel. And the room just collapsed right in. And Nobody died, but it just collapsed in. And the only thing that's all right is that bathroom. So everybody's in the bathroom like, oh, no, what's going to happen to us? I don't know. And this one four-year-old boy, a tornado hit, and a four-year-old boy, it was in a building. And the tornado hit the building and it collapsed on him. And he died.
MARY LOSURE: Two people were killed in the storm. But Elizabeth's tale of the four-year-old is not based in reality. Some of the children, like seven-year-old Sarah, are more shy about talking.
Was your house hit by the tornado?
SARAH: Yeah.
MARY LOSURE: Oh. And what happened?
SARAH: A lot of Windows broke and stuff. And the siding is all starting to pop off, come off.
MARY LOSURE: Where were you? Where were you when the tornado hit?
SARAH: Home.
MARY LOSURE: Oh. What was it? What happened? What was it like?
SARAH: Scary.
MARY LOSURE: Outside the windows of the room where the children are playing, a bright orange truck with a cherry picker pulls up on the lawn so workers can cut down the storm-damaged branches of some big oaks. Two men with chainsaws are soon aloft in buckets at the end of a 45-foot long movable arm, gliding through the treetops. The children pay no attention. Finally, I ask five-year-old Ethan if he's noticed, and we go over to the window to look out.
ETHAN: They had to use that at our house, too.
MARY LOSURE: Oh, yeah? What happened at your house?
ETHAN: It's got a little damage. Just two windows got broken, and a tree fell.
MARY LOSURE: On your house?
ETHAN: That did.
MARY LOSURE: Did the guys come out with a thing like that?
ETHAN: Yep. And then they took a big chainsaw, and they cut it down, cut all the trees. And they hauled it off-- the big fire. And then they were going to burn them.
MARY LOSURE: Ethan extricates himself from the interview as soon as he can and goes back to a motorized plastic game called Fleas on Fred, which at this moment is much more interesting than the aftermath of the tornado. The storm is something for the grown-up world to worry about while he gets back to the business of being a kid. I'm Mary Losure, Minnesota Public Radio.
ETHAN: I got all of mine. I won.
MARY LOSURE: You're lucky. We've got to do it again or what?
ETHAN: I'm going to be careful this time.
MARY LOSURE: You're going to be careful? Well, I think I'll be orange. I'm still--
Digitization made possible by the State of Minnesota Legacy Amendment’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, approved by voters in 2008.
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