Know Your Tornadoes
Posted at 5:20 AM on August 20, 2009
by Dale Connelly
(16 Comments)
Yesterday afternoon's tornado in Minneapolis is most notable for what it did NOT do - it didn't take any human lives, thank goodness. There was property damage, and unfortunately some insurance policies don't pay for mayhem caused by "Acts of God" like earthquakes and tornadoes.
But if this storm was an act of God, He was inconclusive with regard to intent. Is there something displeasing to the Divine about a record store like the Electric Fetus? If so, wasn't the development of the mp3 enough of a calamity? And Lutherans meeting at the convention center will have to argue about whether the tornado's visit was a slap or a high five directed at them. Perhaps they weren't the target at all. Wildlife suffers when the weather turns violent. I'm guessing the South Minneapolis squirrels are still chattering about the rides some of them had as their treetop homes were pushed, spun and dropped onto houses and cars. This may, in fact, be a wake-up call for our bushy tailed neighbors.
One remarkable feature of this storm is the relatively small number of Youtube videos posted of a tornado hitting a densely populated, camera and cell-phone-rich environment like South Minneapolis during the daytime. People were either caught unawares, or used common sense and took cover when things started flying around.
Which is not always the case, as demonstrated by one of Youtube's most-watched tornado videos.
I love it that the disc jockey on the car radio tells her listeners to "be safe" and "don't try to chase them, it's not a good idea", and the guy responds to her with "we're not chasing it. Right beside it, though." That's different, of course. If everybody stays in their lane and obeys the posted traffic signs, nobody gets hurt.
Have you ever seen a tornado?
Comments (16)
When I first moved to Minnesota and didn't know what sirens meant, I looked out the window and saw a funnel-shaped cloud with wood going around in a circle. I was on the phone with my East Coast parents and said"I have to go I think there's a tornado coming." It was the HarMAr tornado and dumped a lot of stuff in the yard. I lost phone service and worried that my parents were fretting. When I finally reached them they said, "Did anyone else panic and head to the basement?" They called the next morning to see if I was OK...they'd seen the tornado on the Today Show and were concerned about me.
Hope everyone is well from the squirrels to the bloggers!
what year, Beth-Ann? i remember one evening in mpls, probably spring of 1965, when a bunch of tornados hit Columbia Heights and other areas. some of my friends and i climbed to the top of our dorm building (in downtown mpls) so we could maybe get a glimpse of what was going on - the lightening was quite terrifying but we were determined to see a tornado. someone saw us, reported and we were retrieved and sent to the steam tunnels to be safe from our youthful curiosities. lots of people hurt and property damage in that storm as i remember....
can't get RH to play this morning no matter what server i use. will try again after milking - but now out to the Girls.
Sure did. When I was a young girl, one touched down and traveled down a street near our house. It happened suddenly, and all the things in our yard were blowing across it. It was difficult for my sister and me to navigate the wind with our small bodies to get to the door of the house.
Sure do - I am living proof that God protects fools such as I. I recall standing in front of a large window in my apartment, transfixed as a tornado headed up the street right toward my apartment building on the intersection of Cedar and Franklin in Mpls - I believe it was 1981. My friend Brad stood with next to me and said "Wow, that looks like a tornado." "Yeah, it sure does." Sounded like one too. Yet - We. Did. Not. Move.
Fortunately for us, the tornado lifted off the street and moved away - leaving us still standing there, mouths agape.
I won't try that again.
Never have - don't want to. The first time I saw the Wizard of Oz, the tornado affected me almost as much as the wicked witch and flying monkeys.
So glad you played the Bob's mopping song yesterday. I heard it later in the day and laughed. (To get the full effect of the previous sentence, you need to raise the pitch of your voice when you read, "laughed", and stretch it out.) Anyway, while listening to the mopping song, I had a deja vu. After hours of pondering and titling of head, it finally came to me. Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka when he flips out on the psychedelic boat ride. Am I right?? Probably any movie when he flips out, actually.
Good Morning!
I saw a tornado about ten years ago while driving south on interstate 35. It was in a small but very nasty looking cloud that crossed the road just south of us by a couple miles and when we got to where it crossed there were trees and semi trucks strewn about but everyone was OK but for being a bit scared.
There's also a tornado moving through my house as I have taken a few days off and am whirling through a very long list of things that should have been taken care of over the summer but have somehow couldn't compete with the great weather we've had.
Have a terrific Thursday!
Nope, haven't seen a tornado - which is sort of disappointing since I was only about 3 blocks away from the one in the 80s that skipped across Lake Harriet and danced through Lakewood Cemetery (another S. Mpls tornado). My brother and I were out on the front porch commenting on the odd green color of the sky - thinking maybe we should check the weather on the radio when it got really windy and some big elms fell...then my mom called to see if we were alright (she was at work and had just heard about the tornado we hadn't seen).
And Donna - I know that Gene Wilder look you're referring to. He does "a little crazy" well.
I saw a tornado when I was out in the country checking potato fields and took cover in a potato storeage shed. It was a small one that didn't do much more that damage part of a soybean field.
Of course, living in Minnesota and before that In Indiana, I have been close to places where tornadoes did do a lot of damage. There was a small one earlier this year that did some damage to the store of people I know in Austin, MN. I hope the Electric Fetus didn't suffer too much damage. It is one of my favorite stores.
We had a local radio station that would give warnings for every one to take cover and then give reports from one of their news men who was driving around looking for the tornado. The news man didn't seem to be a trained tornado spotter, an we wondered how a radio station could have him out looking for tornadoes while telling us we should take cover. The reports were kind of a bad joke.
On the way "up North" in the early '80s a tornado chased me into a Perkins, no basement but lots of people cowering under tables and the counter. I recall needing superman strength to open the door, adrenaline to the rescue!
i was at the chicago art instatute with my wife and kids ages 2 and 4 and we were leaving to get on a train and head beck out to the burbs and we had about 6 or 8 blocks to go to get to the train station. i looked up and saw a black cloud making the city blocks disappear as it approached. it was coming fast and we had a ways to go so i threw one kid on my wifes shoulders and the other on my shoulders and started running looking for cover. the wind hit us before we could get to a safe haven and it hit so hard it was in the process of knocking my wife down when some kind gentleman helped keep her upright and assisted us pushing her off to the side of the road. we saw people rolling down the road unable to stand up, the newspaper boxes that stand on the corner were tumbleing ( as much as a box can tumble) there were lonf strips of steel ripped off the facia of the buildings that were getting caught in the revolving doors as the panicked masses tried to get into any building for cover. in 2 minutes it was over but i will remember the odd sensation of having to be very in tune with the situation as stuff and people were all around.
nature is as powerful as can be imagined and then it is gone and you say "what the hell was that?" i'll bet that came up once or twice yesterday.
Thank you for playing Horn of Plenty, from the musical Plain Hearts at the History Theatre in the late 70's early 80's. I ushered there and heard it many times--came to love the music. It is a beautiful bit of history for all of us who are children/grandchildren of immigrants who came to farm the land in MN.
Please let me know the name of the CD so I can look for it!
Thanks--JulieAnn
As a kid, we'd spend a good part of the summer out at our lake cabin on the prairie of South Dakota. From the front yard, we all stood and watched a tornado cross the next lake in the chain (3 miles away?). Once it was gone, the waves on Lake Poinsett were phenomenal! We ran for the inner tubes (which were actual tractor inner tubes) and rode out the afternoon. It's one of those memories etched in my brain.
Now, however, I'm wondering what the heck we were doing STANDING OUT IN THE FRONT YARD WATCHING A TORNADO?! Of course, Mom says she had it all in control and was ready to run for the cabin crawl space if necessary. Hmmm. I guess I wasn't old enough to have my life pass before my eyes....
Great stories, everyone! Keep 'em coming.
And thanks for noticing "Horn of Plenty", JulieAnn. I love that song too. The disc is by Trova, and it's called "Healing Zone". It's on Red House Records based right here in St. Paul. You can get the disc through their website.
Oops. My link to Red House Records didn't work.
Let's try it again.
I have a tape that was made and sold by Eric Peltoniemi of the music from Plain Hearts. This is an old recording, but I would think that you could find out if it is still available from Eric who is now at Red House Records.
I’ve seen one small tornado that fortunately didn’t do much damage. Albert Lea had a bad one in 1967 that didn’t affect our family but as a young boy really put a fear of severe weather into me. I’ve outgrown that, and would love to be a storm chaser.
I'm glad no one was injured yesterday.
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