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RACHEL REABE: MPR's Mainstreet radio coverage of rural issues is supported by the Blandin Foundation, committed to strengthening communities through grant making, leadership training, and convening.

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Good morning and welcome to a special Mainstreet radio broadcast from St. Peter. I'm Rachel Reabe. It was a year ago today that over a dozen tornadoes roared across Southern Minnesota, killing two people and causing millions of dollars of damage in the communities of Comfrey, La Center, and St. Peter. Today we're going to talk about the efforts to rebuild St. Peter, one of Minnesota's most historic cities.

Some of the landmark buildings here were leveled in the storm. The site where the city's community center once stood is now a vacant block, and many other buildings, including over 100 homes, have been torn down and hauled away. But along with the tragedies were triumphs. Minnesota Public Radio's Art Hughes looks at the progress St. Peter has made to rebuild and restore its history.

ART HUGHES: First, the tornado peeled the roof off of Nancy Jordet's 125-year-old home, and a cold, steady rain soaked the plaster walls, oak floors, and furniture. After the terror of riding out the storm and the adrenaline fueled days afterward cleaning and bracing against any further damage, Jordet says she couldn't allow herself to think too far into the future. Just in the past few months, she says, she's been able to look forward.

NANCY JORDET: I've never been weaker than this last year, spiritually or emotionally or physically. And in that-- I didn't know what that felt like. I've always been strong. In a lot of ways, this experience has been really humbling, because we are weak in the face of things like disaster.

ART HUGHES: Jordet's magnificent yellow brick house stands out more now than it did before the tornado. The three houses directly to the South have been demolished, all of them well over 100 years old. And her yard is bare of the aged trees that once shaded it. She says she started to feel at home again since about Christmas, but so much has changed forever.

NANCY JORDET: It's hard to look out the front door. When we moved back home, none of the inconveniences bothered me as much as walking out the front door and seeing how things looked-- the park being so bare and missing having neighbors.

ART HUGHES: Many landmark buildings near Jordet's home, some of the city's most historic structures, are gone. The St. Peter Arts and Heritage building, the Community Center, the German Lutheran Church, and the Catholic Church have all been demolished, most since the first of this year.

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Like Jordet, homeowner Phil Bryant and his family decided to rebuild their historic home.

PHIL BRYANT: I don't know if you want to call it a rootedness or stupidity or probably a little bit of both [LAUGHS] in that way.

ART HUGHES: Just like the Jordet's home, the roof blew off and rain soaked the interior. But unlike the Jordet's, Bryant and his family are still months away from moving in. Many walls are still skeletal, defined only by bare 2 by 4 studs. There's no kitchen or even furniture. His insurance company says it's a total loss. Still, Bryant decided not only to rebuild the house, but to revive its historic appearance, a decision he says he's questioned many times since. It would have been easier for him, he says, and much cheaper to knock it down and build anew, but it would have been harder on St. Peter.

PHIL BRYANT: It was a good choice in the sense that the town has lost so much of what it was before, and so many of the old historical houses have gone down.

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ART HUGHES: Such decisions to hang on to the structures of St. Peter's past still occur daily on usually a smaller, occasionally larger scale, revealing the value rather than the price locals place on them. The Nicollet hotel came within days of being torn down over the protests from residents, and ad hoc business partnership bought it, and restoration continues today. In contrast, no amount of community outcry could save the badly damaged Arts and Heritage Center.

Other than personal determination, the thing that tips the balance in favor of historic preservation is $1.3 million from the state to help people rebuild. St. Peter planning and development director Shannon Sweeney says local and state incentives may have made the difference between rebuilding or not, in some cases. They've also spurred some pretornado redevelopment plans that had languished.

SHANNON SWEENEY: We've been able to work with those individuals that have already had that commitment to the St. Peter community to work on those projects that have been initiated over years, and perhaps even give them a little bit of a push to even take them a little bit further than what they might have been able to.

ART HUGHES: On Sweeney's office wall, 177 pushpins in a St. Peter map marked the spots where a house or store building was torn down because of the tornado. It's a graphic depiction of the tornado's path through the heart of town. But Sweeney is optimistic, saying the destruction opens up opportunities to rebuild thoughtfully and with planning. For instance, the city has a chance to bury electric lines and eliminate unsightly overhead wires. It may also lay down fiber optic cables, adding state of the art communication to this historic town.

Opportunity is also a word homeowner Nancy Jordet uses. If people can defer immediate comforts a little longer, she says, and instead labor on the elements of a more noble vision, then the tornado's legacy doesn't have to be just about what it destroyed.

NANCY GEORDETT: As I drive around and see the choices people make and the way they put things back together and that continue to energy, it gives me energy too. And that's what I think about when I walk up to our house at night. I hope that people go by and feel some sense of hope that we can put things back together and we can take something difficult and bring maybe greater good out of it.

ART HUGHES: Jordet salvaged an old door from her neighbor's house just before it was torn down. Her husband, Dan, spent hours refurbishing it. Now it serves as their back entrance. She says looking at the door gives her great satisfaction because it's something she saved out of all the many things that were wrecked or discarded. Nancy Jordet says it has effort put into it, and that gives it meaning. I'm Art Hughes, Minnesota Public Radio.

RACHEL REABE: You're listening to a Mainstreet radio special. I'm Rachel Reabe, and we're broadcasting today from the lobby of the old Nicollet Hotel, one of a dozen St. Peter sites listed on the National Historic register. Last year's tornado took the roof off this 1873 building, and it was considered a total loss by the insurance company. The wrecking crane was assembled and ready to tear it down when an 11th hour reprieve came. A hastily formed group of investors bought the Nicollet Hotel and have spent the last year restoring it.

It's one of the success stories in the aftermath of last year's tornado. We're going to talk about the challenge of rebuilding historic St. Peter this hour. My guests are the Chair of St. Peter's historic preservation commission, Judy Bell, and State Historical Architect Charlie Nelson with the Minnesota Historical Society. We've also invited Joel and Kim Brinker to join us. They and their two children are still living in the attic of their grand three story Victorian home while repair work on the rest of the House continues. Good morning, and welcome to all of you.

JUDY BELL: Good morning.

JOEL BRINKER: Good morning.

RACHEL REABE: Our phone lines are open for your questions and comments. You can call us this morning at 1-800-537-5252. The number, again, 1-800-537-5252. Charlie Nelson, you called the devastation in St. Peter one of the major disasters of the century as far as the Minnesota Historical Society is concerned. Why?

CHARLIE NELSON: Well, St. Peter has a very rich heritage dating back almost 150 years. And St. Peter also has equality in its community and its architecture that, in my opinion, is unparalleled in the state of Minnesota. There has been a pure desire to preserve, to enhance, and to continue to live in this community and promote its vitality, living side by side with history and yet planning for the future.

And when we heard about the tornado on March 29, the reaction at the State Historic Preservation Office was just appalling. We had heard that the devastation here was broadcast, that virtually, all buildings had sustained some type of damage, some of which were under the point of probable collapse.

And at that time, it was thought that we needed to make a trip down to St. Peter to do a reconnaissance. The governor's office had already contacted the Minnesota Historical Society right after the tornado had gone through. And on April 1, a team from the State Historic Preservation Office and the conservation department of the Minnesota Historical Society made a trip to St. Peter.

RACHEL REABE: To take a look at how things-- what the situation was here.

CHARLIE NELSON: To take a look at the way things were here. We were one of the few vehicles which was allowed through the barricade. The whole city was cordoned off at that time. Judy Bell, let's talk about what you saw when you came up from your basement a year ago.

JUDY BELL: Total devastation around me. Fortunately, I did not sustain any damage, and that is, of course, the strange nature of a tornado. But directly across the alley where large trees that had fallen down and windows had exploded, and there was a toilet in the backyard, and somebody bread making machine-- just damage and debris everywhere across the street. And I'm right by the college, so I could see all the damage up there, all the windows blown out.

RACHEL REABE: You grew up in St. Peter and have just a real place in your heart for the historic structures in this town. That's one of the reasons you told me you moved back to town.

JUDY BELL: Well, that's correct. I'm fifth generation on my mother's side from the first settlers in town here. And even growing up here, I had a great love for the feel and the look and the whole atmosphere. And in California, of course, everything is new and stucco and square and has no character for the most part. And I always dreamed of someday being able to reside again in a community like this.

So suddenly, I just did it. And I've been busier than ever, and it's been, I believe, in destiny. And I think I had just become chair of the heritage preservation commission just prior to this incident. And the day that Charlie and Angela and the people from the Historical Society came down was a godsend, because that was exactly the kind of help and the stirring of energies that was needed.

RACHEL REABE: Our phone number here is one. 1-800-537-5252. If you have a question or a comment, give us a call today as we broadcast from St. Peter. In those days right after disaster like you sustained here last year, is there so much emotion and so much pressure to make decisions and sometimes to make bad decisions? Because everybody's under the time gun.

JUDY BELL: Yeah, that was exactly it. So many people-- the insurance people, the construction people, and just to mention not to mention the trauma of the people that own the buildings and the homes, of course. And I can't even imagine what it must have been like for all of these people like the bankers that are here today and many of the other homeowners and building owners.

But that was what was this combined drive, was to let people get the word to save the bricks, save as much of the original woodwork as you could find that was lying around. Don't make any rash decisions if possible. If you're in an older home, we try to get the word out about the funding that was coming through, the help. And the city was incredible. Here we had a new development and economic director and a new city manager.

And I have to credit the staff, the people that-- the ladies that worked there on the regular basis that have done such a tremendous amount of work, because we had new people. But everybody teamed together to get the word out to everyone. Flyers were put around town. I mean, on the radio, everything. I was running around knocking on people's doors and saying, do you know that there's money?

RACHEL REABE: Because decisions really were being made that fast.

JUDY BELL: Yes.

RACHEL REABE: Joel and Kim, is that what it was like? Tell us where you were the night of the tornado and what sort of damage did your house sustain?

JOEL BRINKER: Well, we came to town just after the tornado. We were over in Lee Center, and we stopped to see Kim's grandparents there. We hadn't heard on the radio that there was much damage in St. Peter's, so we took our time. But coming down the hill on Highway 99, the first thing I saw was that the steeple was gone, and that just cut me right there.

When we finally did get into town, we drove by our business and saw the colorful aspect of a yarn from our yarn store straight out about four or five blocks. It was very colorful, some of the good parts about it. But when we got to our house, just to see the devastation all around us, it just-- the shock set in, and it took a long time for us to just settle down and take a look at things and say, what are we going to do? How are we going to do it?

RACHEL REABE: And Kim, was there pressure to make a decision quick? Are we tearing down? Are we rebuilding? Are we moving? I mean, are all these things just going through your mind overlaid on the emotions of it?

KIM BRINKER: Definitely. We didn't know what we would do at first. And I remember a couple of days after, we were standing in the middle of our first floor and the rain was coming in on us, and we couldn't figure out why the two floors above it weren't stopping it from coming in. And we had friends and family there, and we were all talking. And we were seriously saying at that point that it just looked too hopeless, and we were going to take it down.

And then we did hear from-- there is going to be funding available. And we ourselves had to wait a week for an engineer to get out and let us structurally whether that was going to be possible or not to rebuild. And it was a long week. We were in shock, I think, most of the time. And you didn't even know where to find people. No phone, no lights, no nothing. I remember one contractor, He was driving by, and we just flagged him down to--

RACHEL REABE: Joel ran out in front of the car, and he was forced to stop.

KIM BRINKER: Pretty much. Yeah.

JOEL BRINKER: Yeah.

RACHEL REABE: So making these decisions but not having really any of the support-- not even having the electricity, the phone-- you really didn't have anything to work with.

KIM BRINKER: No. Right.

JOEL BRINKER: I had a close relationship with the city, and so it was a chance to-- I got a lot of information from everybody down there. Shannon Sweeney was fantastic as far as letting us know that, yes, there's some, some funds available through the Historical Society that have come through. You need to look at your house and see whether or not it's structurally sound to keep it. The roof had blown off. Half of the roof had to be completely replaced. Porch is gone, and just to see what to do with it.

RACHEL REABE: Yeah. Well, it's normal when you look at the pictures, which I look at now and I can hardly relate to what we all saw. But when you see the devastation, it's normal to think of the person who's living that home thinking, it's a total loss. It is a total-- how can we possibly bring this back? And yet all of these people. And along with the funding and all the support and just the character and the will of the people in town. It has come back, and all these beautiful buildings have been saved.

JUDY BELL: It would have been easier to tear down.

RACHEL REABE: Oh, Absolutely.

JUDY BELL: Oh--

RACHEL REABE: Absolutely.

JUDY BELL: --yeah, so much easier.

RACHEL REABE: It's taken a tremendous amount of will.

JOEL BRINKER: But I grew up in this town. Like Judy, I'm a fourth generation family in this town. My kids are kids are here. I actually grew up five blocks away from the house I lived in, so this is my old neighborhood. And to see these old houses, it's just-- the heritage of the St. Peters is a part of my blood. I served on the Heritage Preservation Commission many years ago too, so it's always been a very strong concern of mine to maintain and make sure that we can repair or retain these old buildings, these old houses, and their look as best we can.

I've probably been the more optimist one in the family or should I say my catchword, again, right away was the opportunities in listening to the tape about Nancy Jordet and everybody else, the word opportunity jumped in real fast. And I said, boy, this is our chance to decide to rebuild this house, fix it up, and do some things that we probably wanted to do later on 10 years down the road, but now they need to be done now.

JUDY BELL: Well, and that's the thing, is so many of the buildings, the homes, everything look better than they did before. Funny little additions have been taken off, and new trims replaced. And in many ways, it has caused the city to be absolutely revitalized.

RACHEL REABE: If you have a comment or a question about the progress of St. Peter or about last year's tornadoes, call us at 1-800-537-5252. I'm Rachel Reabe, and we are live from the Mainstreet in St. Peter. My colleague Mark Style is outside with one of the building owners. Good morning, Mark.

MARK STYLE: Good morning, Rachel. That's right. We're here with Philip [? Friedland, ?] who is part of the ownership group of the Nicollet Hotel. The hotel is about 125 years old, standing on Minnesota Avenue. It's one of the most beautiful and oldest of the many old buildings which are to be found in St. Peter. Philip, if you could tell me, what are we looking at here? What sort of damage did this brick structure sustain in the tornado?

[? PHILIP FRIEDLAND: ?] In the tornado, it sustained some substantial damage. The roof of the building was lifted right off of it. There was only about a 30 foot square piece of the previous roof. We now have a new roof on the building there at the time. And attached to that roof structure was an ornate structure around the building-- parapet, walls that stood some 6 feet high and decorative cornice work and brackets around it.

MARK STYLE: So we can look up at the top and actually see a layer of their match very close to the old brick. But you can see a different coloration there where the old brick was lifted off by the tornado.

PHILIP FRIEDLAND: Yes, you can. And so what we have done right now, we're undertaking the restoration work within the building. But last winter, fortunately in the fall, we had a fairly nice fall and we were able to get the roof totally reconstructed, the cornice work reestablished, and all of the brick work reestablished on the building.

MARK STYLE: And we heard Rachel and Art Hughes in his report also talking about how close this building came to be taken down. I'd like to get it straight from you, how close was the call there to saving this building?

PHILIP FRIEDLAND: We actually purchased it on the day that the wrecking ball was scheduled to tear it down. It was judged to be an unsafe building, and the insurance company had judged it a total loss. But we saw it differently and saw the potential.

MARK STYLE: What did you see that made you want to save this building?

PHILIP FRIEDLAND: Well, fortunately, I had a very good architect working with me, a friend of mine for some time, and he looked through the building and saw that the structural damage was definitely repairable and that the basic structure, since he had dealt so much with historic buildings, was so strong that it was not a building that would be imminent falling down. And so we had a very good foundation to work from.

MARK STYLE: I mean, is there more to it, more of a sense of history that you feel needs to be preserved or is it mainly just that building this utility angle?

PHILIP FRIEDLAND: I look at things in a variety of ways. We first looked at it from the business side and saw what the costs of renovation would be. And we'd also like to thank all of the agencies in the city that have come through to support us because that day that we decided to purchase the building, we had had a couple of weeks to do some previous work with the city and the agencies, and they had come forward with some guaranteed funding. And if we hadn't had that, we wouldn't have been able to succeed here either.

Did you see any need for a change? I mean, the pressure packed situation that occurs after a major disaster like a tornado in that decisions have to be made. And deadlines are coming up. The insurance company wants this. The city wants this, and the building stands there ready to be torn down. Does there need to be more of a lull-- more of a issue taking or decision making time allowed for these things?

PHILIP FRIEDLAND: It would have been nice to have had a little bit more time to reflect on what we were doing. But Tom and I are both very altruistic people and saw what we wanted to have accomplished here, and we were going to make it a can do approach. And all the agencies and the city were of that same mind. And although we had a lot of pressures with time, we had a lot of confidence too.

MARK STYLE: And that's Philip Friedland, who's part of the ownership group of the Nicollet Hotel. Rachel,

RACHEL REABE: Thank you, Mark. We have Kelly from Osio on the phone.

AUDIENCE: Good morning, Kelly. Good morning, Rachel, and good morning to all of your guests this morning. What a difference a year does make. My question that I have is, now that we look back, it's a year later, what things would you continue to do the same if we were to have another large scale destruction of one of our beautiful historic towns or areas in Minnesota? What would you do differently or What other ways would you improve as far as, you know, getting contractors to come out or distribution of monies or any other factors that you've seen since last year.

RACHEL REABE: Charlie, let's have you answer that, because I know you told me, when the call came in from St. Peter, you didn't really have a disaster plan. You kind of made the disaster plan as you went along.

CHARLIE NELSON: That's absolutely right. And--

RACHEL REABE: What did you learn from how things went a year ago?

CHARLIE NELSON: Well, we learned that one of the things you don't want to do in a disaster is to make decisions too rapidly. And the pressure is on. When something happens, there is a need for people to get back to their lives. And that need oftentimes is pressured by insurance agencies and others that are involved in trying to clean up things too fast.

RACHEL REABE: So that fight or flight syndrome gets going. And probably our natural tendency is flight.

CHARLIE NELSON: Our tendency at hearing this was that we needed to provide some type of a counsel at this critical moment to help people to realize that those decisions did not have to be made without some type of a professional guidance. So one of the programs we did is we organized the volunteer program with the Minnesota Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and there were over 30 architects who came to St. Peter on April 7 and met with over 100 property owners to--

RACHEL REABE: Were you amazed at the turnout on both sides, that you could get that many architects to volunteer and then all the people would come?

CHARLIE NELSON: I was amazed and pleased. I was pleased that my colleagues felt that this was something that really was that worthwhile of devoting their time and effort. And many of them not only spent a few days in St. Peter as volunteers, but to pair it up with property owners over the last year to provide guidance in rehabilitating and fixing up their homes.

RACHEL REABE: Joel, did you and Kim take advantage of that? Did you meet-- were you one of the 100 that met.

JOEL BRINKER: We did meet with an architect.

RACHEL REABE: Does that help, just the fact that they came here and they were available for you?

JOEL BRINKER: It did in a way. Our story is that we never saw them again, unfortunately. But I understand, he went off to do some other work in some other houses. We were fortunate enough to find some old pictures and just put pieces back together as to what our house was. And one thing that-- one story I like to tell is that we had an 80-year-old man come through town, and he had lived in this house that we live in now when he was five or six years old. And so he walked through us, the whole house from top to bottom and explained where things were, how they used to be, and how the porch used to be sit on the front, and what was where the garage was off the back, and it was just fantastic.

RACHEL REABE: And so more information than you had prior to the tornado.

JOEL BRINKER: Yeah, definitely.

CHARLIE NELSON: But another thing that we felt was very, very important in this was to make sure that the elements, unique architectural elements of these buildings, would not be destroyed or lost. Because simply, they could not be economically reproduced. And this is one of the reasons why we asked Governor Carlson to appropriate the 1 million, which later became 1.3 million, to provide a special stop gap or a gap financing program to allow property owners to replace things such as porches and turrets and spindles and whatever that your normal coverage would not.

RACHEL REABE: We're talking about the ongoing work to rebuild historic St. Peter one year after the. Tornado. My guests are homeowners Joel and Kim Brinker, Charlie Nelson with the Minnesota Historical Society, and chair of the heritage preservation commission in St. Peter. Judy Bell. I'm Rachel Reabe, and you're listening to a special Mainstreet Radio broadcast from St. Peter. MPR's Mainstreet Radio coverage of rural issues is supported by the Blandin Foundation, committed to strengthening communities through grant making, leadership training, and convening. We'll be back with more of Mainstreet after a look at news and weather.

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LORNA BENSON: I'm Lorna Benson. At the turn of the century, a 15-year-old boy in Northfield was building his own automobile, while most other Minnesotans predicted the new toy was just a passing fad.

SPEAKER 1: Dad, being a lover of horses, cautioned us continually to leave anything that used gasoline alone or we would be blown up.

LORNA BENSON: Listen to All Things Considered on Monday for the next in our Minnesota century series. KNOW FM 91.1 in the Twin Cities.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: Good morning. With news from Minnesota Public Radio, I'm Greta Cunningham. The White House is repeating it has no plans to send ground troops into Kosovo saying NATO is following the proper course. Spokesman Joe Lockhart also says he can't confirm reports that prominent Kosovo Albanians have been executed in recent days. But he says there are strong indications the Serb offensive against Kosovo has intensified.

European Union officials say the refugee situation in Kosovo continues to look grim. Officials estimate as many as 100,000 Ethnic Albanians have fled to Albania and many are fleeing to other neighboring countries. Officials say shelter and sanitation are top priorities for the countries, which are largely being overwhelmed.

A guilty plea is expected later today from the Marine who was navigating the plane that sliced a cable car line. Military officials say, Captain Joseph Schweitzer will admit to obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Last year's accident sent 20 people to their deaths. An explosion at Michigan fireworks plant has killed at least one person and critically injured another. Back in December, seven workers died in the blast at the same facility, the cause of which has not been found.

In regional news, two key state lawmakers want to set aside about $25 million annually for transit projects beginning of the year 2002. Transportation Commissioner Elwyn Tinklenberg and Metropolitan Council chairman Ted Mondale offered the proposal today. They would dedicate 5% of the motor vehicle excise tax annually. The money from sales taxes on cars usually goes to road maintenance statewide. They plan to submit the proposal to the legislature this week. Governor Ventura has been a supporter of transit development.

The forecast for Minnesota today-- partly to mostly sunny skies statewide. There is a possibility of a brief afternoon shower in the Northeast today. Highs for around 50 in the North to 60 in the Southwest. At this hour, Rochester reports sunshine and 51. It's sunny in Duluth and 43. Fargo reports sunshine and 42. And in the Twin cities, sunshine, a temperature of 52. That's a news update. I'm Greta Cunningham.

RACHEL REABE: One year ago today, one of the largest tornadoes to ever touch down in Minnesota swept through St Peter. Next hour, we're going to look at Minnesota's weather patterns. Have they gotten more extreme? We've invited three of Minnesota's top meteorologists to join us in St. Peter to answer your questions. But now we're continuing our conversation about the restoration efforts underway in historic St. Peter. I'm Rachel Reabe, and we're broadcasting from the lobby of the Nicollet Hotel, an 1873 gem that came very close to being another tornado casualty. Our phone lines are open for your calls at 1-800-537-5252. We have Janice on the phone in Minneapolis. Good morning, Janice.

AUDIENCE: Good morning. I would like to just pose a question to your panel. I'd also like to commend the Brinkers for taking on the large task of rejuvenating their home to its original condition. My question regards a lot of the architectural salvaging that's going on. I had heard early on that there were a lot of people coming into the area and scavenging around for pieces, which could be taken and resold. And my assumption is that most likely, they were taken up to Minneapolis and resold.

It's such a common thing right now, and I think it's wonderful that people are interested in restoration of the homes and the appreciation of the historical elements. But I'm wondering if you could ask or answer, rather, how widespread was that problem? And was there anything that the Historical Society was able to do or any other organization in the area to retain these architectural elements for the people within the St. Peter area?

CHARLIE NELSON: I noticed that we have dealt with one of the architectural companies in Minneapolis, and we asked them about this very thing, if they were going to be coming down to St. Peter? And they said, we're not scavengers. We've been contacted from people from some people in St. Peter that said, our house is coming down. Would you come down and help us out here or take what you need or-- and they did that. But they were very much not the carpetbagger type aspect.

RACHEL REABE: But there was the incident that happened at the big Schuhmacher Mark Ahlstrom house over here where he had deliberately picked up pieces of the brackets and railings and all of these things that had put them up on his front porch, and they did disappear. Now, whether that was zealous volunteers, we don't know. But he did make a real effort to save those pieces, and they did disappear.

CHARLIE NELSON: In our initial contact with the homeowners here, one of the first things we said is to gather up as much as you possibly can to put it in a secure place. Because if they couldn't reuse it, they could certainly use--

JUDY BELL: Use it as a mold.

CHARLIE NELSON: --it as a pattern or a mold. Yes, exactly. And that's one of the aspects of the disaster planning program that the Minnesota Historical Society is currently developing. And eventually, there will be the opportunity for hopefully not another disaster of this scale and this impact. But there will be the opportunity to present materials like this in a guidance format that people will be able to look at and use to prepare for the next stages in their restoration.

RACHEL REABE: So this was quite a learning process.

CHARLIE NELSON: Absolutely.

RACHEL REABE: Well, I even had a call during the-- it was about a month ago, and the tornadoes or something that hit down south, I don't remember where it was. But I had a call from someone in town there, and the same question-- what did you do about your historic places and how can we even start? So if the Historical Society is going to develop a program, that would be something that would be very worthwhile.

CHARLIE NELSON: One of the things we are really trying to do is, we're trying to get the word out as to the value of historic properties and the design treatments in those historic properties, because it's a unique situation. It is not your typical way that you settle an insurance claim. Insurance claims oftentimes say, well, we will replace this, but they don't get to the detail of replacing it in kind. And that's where we have a lot of trouble in historic property.

JUDY BELL: So they would have given the Brinkers another three story pink house, but not the same kind of historic three story pink house.

JOEL BRINKER: That's one thing I really want to pass on to people. Is that if you have an older house, to really get down and dirty with your insurance agent and make sure that you are well covered for the unique aspects that you have of your house.

JUDY BELL: Things that are hard to put a value on, really.

JOEL BRINKER: Our windows, we have rounded windows in our house. It's hard to put a value on it until you need to replace them. And it took a long time. It took a lot of effort searching and finding. We found someplace, but a lot of those things are-- you can get them covered, and I think you should. Because even though our Governor Carlson at the time was very supportive of everything and quick to the draw to make sure everything that there was funds available, not every governor is like that.

CHARLIE NELSON: Joel hit on a very important point, is that these things are covered if you do take your time and you do your homework. If you make your decisions too hastily, oftentimes, you lose on the opportunity to do things right.

RACHEL REABE: Our phone number is 1-800-537-5252. We'd love to hear from you this hour. We have Kevin from St. Louis Park on the phone. Good morning, Kevin.

AUDIENCE: Good morning.

RACHEL REABE: Hi.

AUDIENCE: I've got a special hello to Joel and Kim there. I was neighbors. I'm originally from St. Peter, born and raised there, lived in St. Louis Park here for about 4 and 1/2 years now. But listening to Joel and Kim there, I want to say a special hi to them. And I know the neighborhood. I know their house. I know the efforts they put into the house prior to the tornado. And I just want to let them know, and Nancy Jordet, and all my friends and family down there still that we think of all of you every day, and hang in there.

JOEL BRINKER: And Kevin, your old house is looking very well now.

AUDIENCE: Well, it looks a little different than it did when we were there, Joel, but it's still there. And that gives us strength when we do come to town.

RACHEL REABE: Kevin, let me ask you this question. Is it difficult having the ties that you have in St. Peter and yet viewing it and living through this disaster from afar?

AUDIENCE: It's real difficult. And I'll tell you, I wake up every morning, every morning about 2 o'clock in the morning, and that tornado hits me. I wasn't there that day. I was there that night about 9 o'clock in the evening. But I wake up every morning thinking about it. And it's real difficult. And you come to town, and you see your old school and your old church and that stuff that's no longer there, not to mention the trees and that sort of thing. It's It hurts. It really hurts.

RACHEL REABE: Thank you for your call this morning. Our number, 1-800-537-5252. If you have a question or a comment, call us, 1-800-537-5252. One of the things that Kevin talked about, he mentioned the trees. And I know in this conversation about St. Peter, we have heard that over and over again about the trees that were lost and the trees that were just snapped in the storm and how it's changed the entire character of the town. We don't usually think of trees when we're talking about historic preservation. And yet, Judy, they were a huge part of this community.

JUDY BELL: Oh, they absolutely were. I mean, a tree is as much a part of the history if it dates back 100, 125 years. It was there when my great, great grandmother was outside picking sunflowers. So they're very important aspect as far as the beauty and the character of the whole community. And that was the one thing that travelers coming through town commented on about. Now they can see every building and at Gustavus because the umbrella of trees is no longer there. But it will come back. We've had donations of trees. Some mature 25 to 30-year-old trees are going to be planted very soon, and it'll just take time. Unfortunately, our children and grandchildren will never see the St. Peter that we knew.

RACHEL REABE: Joel, you're on the city council. Do you feel that obligation to rebuild and restore the community, not just for the people who live here, but the people who have those ties, the people who went to school here, or the people like Kevin who lived here at one time? Is there that feeling of, we've got to rebuild it. This is their history as well.

JOEL BRINKER: Very, very much so. It's overwhelming to just think of all the work that needs to be done. It was very sad to be the one to have to vote to tear down the community center that we had. That was a school that my grandfather and my father and I went to and my son Jack went to. And then to have to be the one to vote to tear it down-- my company had also been one of the contractors that rebuilt it years ago when we turned it from a school into a community center.

So that's a very close emotional ties. And I can see that if you're not living in town anymore, that you have lived here, that you still have these emotional ties to these buildings. These are your memories. These are the banisters that you slid down when you were a kid. That's very important.

RACHEL REABE: Has it gotten easier in the last year, Judy? I know in talking to you and I see Brinker's and talking to you as well, it's still so emotional. It's, I think, 12 months. And so for people who say, great, St. Peter's back, wonderful. Everything is just like new.

KIM BRINKER: Yeah. Joel's got his hanky here this morning.

[LAUGHTER]

JUDY BELL: No, it's true.

RACHEL REABE: It's tough.

JUDY BELL: Like I said, I didn't have any damage, and I don't know what kind of a mess I would be if I'd had any. But just looking around and seeing, like Joel said, the school, the old school that had a lot of history and beauty to it, seeing all the things, yeah, I get very-- just talking right now, my chest tightens up. I can't help it. It just happens all the time, and yet I haven't really dealt with it, I guess, like a lot of people.

RACHEL REABE: People have been too busy to deal with it, probably.

[? CHARLIE NELSON: ?] [INAUDIBLE]

JUDY BELL: Well, that's true. And you put all your efforts into being optimistic and trying to rebuild and get things going. I wanted to mention that there was a program developed by the commission some years ago, the Heritage Preservation, which I've reactivated, which is the founders and heritage homes program. And what we're going to do is contact all the homeowners in town or as many as we can initially, certify them for the work they're doing on preserving these homes, and then hopefully get as many people as possible to move to the next step of applying to be on the National Register of Historic Places and get even more registered buildings and homes in the city.

RACHEL REABE: One of the categories of people that have been in very short supply in the last year are construction people as people have struggled to find somebody to come in and work on their house or their building. Mark Style, you're with the contractor right now.

MARK STYLE: That's right, Rachel. We're outside the hotel with the Foreman of the construction crew working at the Nicollet Hotel. Frank [? Lohan ?] is with us. He's from Mankato. Frank, when you tackle an old project like this, what is the toughest challenge you face?

[? FRANK LOHAN: ?] I would say walls are not plumb. They're not straight. Joists are not uniformly spaced. And so you can't make any assumptions at all. You have to double check everything. You have to assume it's crooked and work from there.

MARK STYLE: That part of it, the crookedness, is that because the building settled or some of that, just the way the thing was put up the first time?

[? FRANK LOHAN: ?] That's the way things are put up originally. They used to put a lot of plaster on walls, so whether the studs were perfectly straight and all that didn't matter. Lath didn't matter. It was a-- lot of it was a type of structure that the way it was done before, the craftsmanship that was used previously, and now it's not economical to do it that way. So you have to deal with those issues.

MARK STYLE: Now, you told me that for someone to bid on a project or bidding on an old building is always a difficult, if not sometimes impossible job, because you don't know what you're getting into.

[? FRANK LOHAN: ?] Yeah. To be fair with the customer, you just about have to take a timeout and material and work on a good relationship with them because you're going to bid it high if you have to bid it because you have to cover yourself. And there are too many variables that you can't see, you can't find until you get into it.

MARK STYLE: Tell me where you're at now on this reconstruction project, this repair project, and what the next couple of months hold.

[? FRANK LOHAN: ?] Well, the roof is all on, and we're watertight. Interior, the structural the is all taken care of, and the framework is up. We're sheetrocking. Second floor is being taped now, and we'll be going into third floor next week. So we got-- four of the townhouses are nearly ready for paint, and we're doing some of the exterior work now because the weather's nice. And we're finished four porches, and it's cosmetic things now that are being addressed and trying to make it look more like the old time building.

MARK STYLE: For you, is this the type of project you like doing or is it something that makes you lay awake at night worrying about what you're going to find the next day?

[? FRANK LOHAN: ?] Well, I enjoy doing it. It's something a little different than the normal. Makes you think a little bit. But no, you don't want to lose sleep over it because it won't help.

MARK STYLE: Thank you. That's Frank [? Lohan, ?] who's the Foreman at this construction site at the Nicollet Hotel. Rachel

RACHEL REABE: Thank you, Mark. Our phone number, 1-800-537-5252 if you would like to call us this morning. Joel and Kim, you're still living in the attic?

JOEL BRINKER: Yeah. It's comfortable.

CHARLIE NELSON: What are the plans? So tell me where the house is at now. For a while, you couldn't even live in the attic. So I suppose even moving back onto the site was up for you.

KIM BRINKER: Right. Because that part of the house took such a hard hit, that was the part that had a lot of the work done initially to get it back to be-- and keep the water out and all that. So we realized about mid summer that if we were going to get back into the house by the winter-- we were living about 12 miles out, that that was going to be the only place that we were going to be able to do that. And so we changed gears a little bit and put our efforts into that and got that done and moved back in just before Thanksgiving. And it's very nice, just being back in the house. Just to be back in was wonderful. And we worked downstairs at night, and then we come up to the attic and are able to just leave everything down there and relax.

JUDY BELL: They had a beautiful--

JOEL BRINKER: The dust seems to follow us, though.

KIM BRINKER: The dust--

JUDY BELL: They had a beautiful big fir tree outside too that went as well as some other large trees on the property too.

RACHEL REABE: When do you think you'll be back into the rest of the house? When will you move out of the attic?

KIM BRINKER: We are hoping that within a month here, that we will have most of the first floor ready to move back in. We're working on plaster repair and sheetrock in the foyer. And then just to get the rest of the trim back up, we'll be able to move our living room and our dining room down. And we'll still sleep up in the attic. Probably, we hope to be into the second floor by winter.

JOEL BRINKER: Yeah, the second floor--

[? JUDY BELL: ?] By the time the kids graduate from high school, you hope to be using that second floor.

JOEL BRINKER: That's when it was supposed to be done. But we still have the whole second floor. It's wired and everything. Everything we own is stored on the second floor, so we just can't get in there and work. So we're hoping to, like I say, about the end of the month, to move, start moving things down so we can start working in that area. It's been a labor of love because there's some-- old drywall and plaster repair man, so I've been able to do a lot of the work myself. But it's tough to do a 40 hours at work and then come home and work on your house until late at night.

RACHEL REABE: Over the past 12 months, how many times have you said to each other, maybe this really wasn't such a hot idea?

JOEL BRINKER: I haven't.

KIM BRINKER: I don't think we've verbalized it. But I think got to think those thoughts every now and then.

JOEL BRINKER: I come from a-- having worked on new houses and old houses, I've got a real strong belief that people don't really own their houses because they outlive us. And we're just merely the caretakers. And we need to do what we can to maintain them so that-- because they'll be there after we're gone again. And so in doing this house here, it's simple to just maybe sheetrock and tape things out. But to put the old rounded ceilings back in is an extra things that need to be there. Those little things that will carry on forever on that house.

JUDY BELL: What Joel just said just makes me cry. Because like you said, even when we're gone now, these homes will still be there. And because of the great work that people like Joel and Kim and everyone else in town have been doing, this is true. These beautiful structures will be there beyond us. Thank you. I just have the greatest respect and admiration for everybody who's doing all their work.

KIM BRINKER: And the support that you get throughout the year. When we were feeling like it was just overwhelming, somebody would come along-- and even though everything is a mess, they'd walk in and say, oh, it's looking great.

JUDY BELL: Looking great.

KIM BRINKER: Yeah, you're getting there.

JUDY BELL: You're getting there.

KIM BRINKER: And you needed to hear that. And there were always people that were able to come by and just tell us that.

JUDY BELL: Just a few more years.

KIM BRINKER: Yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

RACHEL REABE: Charlie Nelson, there were some great triumphs. We're sitting in the lobby of one of them, the Nicollet Hotel. You talked about one of the churches in town that you were so pleased about the repair work that went on there.

CHARLIE NELSON: Well, I'm quite pleased with the work that went on with the Church of the Holy Communion, the Episcopal Church, which is on the National Register. This was a structure that was not as severely damaged as the Lutheran Church in the Catholic church. But the tornado had lifted the roof completely off and slammed it back down on its walls, breaking a couple of the trusses. And these trusses are over 100 years old, made of materials that cannot be replaced today.

So I had the opportunity to meet with a very, very sympathetic contractor who was a structural engineer. And he looked at this roof and he said, I think we can take these trusses and we can take some metal gussets, or metal plates, and bolt them together and hold. All these trusses together and to save them. And to me, that was probably one of the best decisions that ever could have been made.

It was a decision which resulted in preserving the historic quality of the building. The new roof would have never compared with saving, the historic materials. And today, people can walk in that building, and they can look up, and they can see the historic roof, but they can also see that metal plate. And that tells the story of what happened in March 29.

JOEL BRINKER: Yeah, that's a-- we've left some things like that. Because it's important that this is what has happened to the house.

KIM BRINKER: Now it's part of the history.

JOEL BRINKER: It's part of the history of the house. There's some, some places on the floor I said, you don't need to worry about taking those pieces out. Those were damaged by the tornado, and just leave them be.

KIM BRINKER: And in the next 50 years, whoever's living there, that'll be part of the-- this reminds me, there's been so much talk about all the roofs that have been blown off. And one of the key things, I think, Charlie, you'll agree, was to have preparations to put a tarp over the building, because we had rains right away after the tornado.

JUDY BELL: As if the tornado wasn't enough, then the rain, then the snow.

KIM BRINKER: And then you have-- yeah. So the tarping immediately is-- tarp it then think about what you're going to do.

RACHEL REABE: Is that right.

CHARLIE NELSON: Then you had high winds a few weeks later again.

KIM BRINKER: Yeah. We'll tarp it securely.

[LAUGHTER]

RACHEL REABE: So you were beginning to feel like Job here in St. Peter, was just one thing after another. Judy, my question for you is, because of the tornado and these unbelievable efforts on the part of people in this community to save and to restore and to rebuild, do you think that there is a greater interest now in this town about the historic nature of St. Peter? Has it piqued people's interest, people who perhaps took it for granted before?

JUDY BELL: I do think so. There's always been controversy over the efforts of any historic preservation, in this city as well as anywhere else. And it's easy enough to look at the word progress and think that means tearing down a building to make room for something else, which is usually a square stucco structure of no interest, whatever.

And I think because of this and because, again, the commitment of the people in town to actually take the effort and because of Charlie and his group and the finance and the governor-- I mean, the whole effort, that's why we have this sign out here, "Thank you to everybody." Absolutely everybody for the work that they've done and helping us from outside the city as well.

And yes, people have come to now, I think, appreciate the value of the buildings that we have and what it means in terms of tourism, which I'm very interested in, movie locations, which I'm involved in, and just the growth of the area. And it's important for people to understand that an old building isn't just something to be thrown aside casually. It has a meaning. It represents where we've been, and it can be a blueprint for where we're going.

RACHEL REABE: Charlie, in Minnesota, have we been a little slow to jump on the historic bandwagon, would you say, especially in rural Minnesota?

CHARLIE NELSON: I don't think we've been slow to jump on the historic bandwagon. I think that we feel that historic preservation is just a way of life. And maybe we don't call it preservation, but our communities, continue to go on year after year with respect to their history. And to me, the grassroots part of historic preservation is just as important, if not more so, than giving it a label.

RACHEL REABE: Do you think, though, this will be a touchstone for people even in other communities, to say, boy, our house is 100 years old, our house is 120 years old. Maybe we better think about-- maybe we better take a look at our insurance. Maybe we better think about getting it, see if it would be eligible to be listed on the historic register. Are those good things that could come out of this?

CHARLIE NELSON: They are very good things to come out of it. The general awareness that you live in a house which has some history, it has importance, like Joel and Judy said, that we are stewards of our history, I think that is very, very important. And it's unfortunate that it's a disaster which oftentimes brings these things to the fore and makes us really realize how tenuous our existence is.

RACHEL REABE: And your group is coming up with a seminar to talk to other people about if this ever happens, this is what you can do. Tell us quickly about it.

CHARLIE NELSON: We will be doing a preservation conference, a statewide conference, on May 14 and 15, right here in St. Peter. We will be focusing on disaster preparedness and on ways that we can take steps to preserve our history. It's co-sponsored by the State Historic Preservation Office and the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota. If there is anyone out there who would like to attend this conference, and we certainly encourage you, because it will be an eye opening experience, please call our office at area code 651-296-534.

RACHEL REABE: Joel, today, a year after the tornado, are you halfway back the community, 75% of the way back? People would love to hear you say, we're back.

JOEL BRINKER: Oh, yeah.

RACHEL REABE: Everything's finished. But we can hear the saws. Even sitting here on Mainstreet, we can hear the workers. And you drive around town, and there is construction going on every place. Where are you at the rebuilding process?

JOEL BRINKER: Looking over, I think we're about halfway back. For our Citywide buildings, it's going to be a couple of years yet before we're done rebuilding a lot of those-- the church, getting those things done, we're a ways away. It's interesting to drive-through town and see the houses that look like they're done. Yet at night time, when they're all buttoned up, you see the little pigtail lights and the bare studs on the inside of the walls. And it's still-- we're overall we're about halfway back.

RACHEL REABE: Is today a rough day for you?

JOEL BRINKER: It is.

RACHEL REABE: Does it help that it's blue skies and sunshine?

KIM BRINKER: Helps a lot.

JOEL BRINKER: It helps. There's no snow.

RACHEL REABE: Judy, you said last night, it was looking a little dark here.

KIM BRINKER: I think everybody was a little uncomfortable yesterday because it was very, very, very windy and dark and overcast. And although there was a church service up at Christ Chapel, which was very, very well attended. And I think it's been helpful to the whole city that there was the observance plan this weekend where people could get together and talk and share and feel support for each other. But yeah, the winds and the gray skies were not a good thing yesterday.

RACHEL REABE: Church bells will be ringing in comfrey at 4:30 today and here in St. Peter at 5:25 to mark the time the tornadoes touched down a year ago. For the people of these Southern Minnesota communities, it's a time to remember and a time to look back. We're halfway through this Mainstreet broadcast from St. Peter, Charlie Nelson with the Minnesota Historical Society, Judy Bell, Chair of St. Peter's Heritage Preservation Commission, and St. Peter. Homeowners Joel and Kim Brinker, thank you for being with us.

JOEL BRINKER: Thank you.

RACHEL REABE: Next hour, we'll find out, what was so unique about the tornadoes that tore across Southern Minnesota last year? A trio of weather experts are joining us in St. Peter to answer your weather questions. It's all ahead when we continue our Mainstreet special from St. Peter after the news.

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