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Minnesota has a history of stormy weather – plus a lot of tornadoes

By Chuck Hunt - Editor | May 26, 2024

Another thunderstorm is rumbling its way through the area as I write this column early Friday morning. It’s bringing some more rain to the area, not that we really need it right now.

There was a doozy of a storm this past Tuesday afternoon. In fact, it went on a lot of the day. But in the afternoon, the skies were threatening, it turned very dark and the rain was coming down sideways because the wind was so fierce.

Then came the threat of tornadoes and people were headed to their basements. There was a reported tornado in the Martin County and maybe even Blue Earth County areas.

One Blue Earth Area school bus driver, Michelle Hall, was on her route near Huntley when the storm hit hard, the day turned to night and the wind was fierce and the rain was pummeling the bus.

She only had two students left on board, and luckily, they were high schoolers and not first graders. She pulled into a farm yard, away from trees and faced the wind. One of the students went to the door of the house but there was no answer. He got pretty wet, Michelle reports.

The wind was so fierce it sucked open the roof vents in the bus. Luckily the worst part of it only lasted a couple of minutes and everyone got home safe.

We get our share of bad storms here. But so does most of Minnesota, and the entire Midwest for that matter. This time the tornadoes and terrible damage – and loss of life – happened south of us, in Iowa again, not so much in Minnesota.

I lived all of my youth not concerned about tornadoes. Growing up in Southern California and the Denver area, it was not a thing.

Then on June 13, 1968, my family and I moved to Minnesota. I remember the date well. On our way into the state the news on the radio was that some town named Tracy was just hit by a tornado, which destroyed homes and the school. Nine people were killed and 125 were hurt.

Three months later I met my college roommate, who was from Tracy.

Eventually, in 1985, Pam and I moved to Tyler, Minnesota, and I learned that Tyler was once hit by a tornado that is listed as the fourth deadliest tornado in Minnesota history. The twister, which destroyed most of the downtown, killed 36 people and injured 225.

It happened on Aug. 21, 1918 at 9:20 p.m. The loss of life could have been much greater as the movie theater was full of people and the tornado miraculously skipped the theater while destroying almost every other building in downtown.

If Tyler is number four, you might be wondering about the top three.

No. 3 was in Rochester on the same date, Aug. 21, as Tyler, but in 1883. One more than in Tyler was killed, 37, with 200 injured. No. 2 was in Fergus Falls a year after the Tyler tornado, on June 22, 1919, where 57 were killed and 200 injured.

The No. 1 deadliest Minnesota tornado was on April (yes April) 14, 1886, in the St. Cloud/Sauk Rapids area. There were 72 persons killed and 213 injured.

I have seen a couple of tornadoes, from a long distance, not close up, over the years. They were in Minnesota, North Dakota and Texas. And no, I was not out “chasing” the tornadoes like some news people do.

But one time I found myself up close and personal with a tornado, although I never actually saw it.

That is because I was in it.

It was June 16, 1992, and I was driving the newspaper layout pages from Tyler to Slayton so the paper could be printed there. My route took me through Lake Wilson, Minnesota, just north of Chandler, and there was a terrible storm that literally kept trying to blow me off the road.

I did not realize until later that a tornado destroyed Chandler and was on its way to Lake Wilson right when I was driving through.

Only one person was killed in that tornado, and it was someone driving who was thought to have taken shelter in a ditch. I was lucky that was not me.

Yeah, it was a pretty dumb thing to do. Especially since when I got to the printing plant in Slayton the power was out because of the storm, so the newspaper could not be printed anyway.

So, I spent the night in the Slayton motel. In the dark.

I am sure many of you have your own stories of escaping a bad storm and maybe a tornado. There have been several bad storms and a tornado or two in the area in the 17 years I have lived in Blue Earth.

So, the moral of this story is probably to take storms seriously, especially if or when that tornado siren goes off.

Of course, some of the storms I have been in have been when I was in a camper or even in a tent in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. No basements there.But, that is another story for another day.

Stay safe everybody.