We Minnesotans just love to complain about the weather; it’s practically a part-time occupation. This past summer, though, we had plenty of good reasons to complain: brutally broiling temps often in the upper 90s.
That said, my New Year’s resolution is going to be this: No more bellyaching about the weather. We are mighty lucky living so far from “Tornado Alley,” as it’s often dubbed.
After seeing those heartbreaking scenes of devastation caused by the monstrous tornadoes in five states, I instantly concluded that Minnesota is a great state to live in, despite scorching hot summers and bitter-cold winters that seem to last forever and a day.
The tornado scenes were horrifying: towns flattened to shattered rubble, a collapsed Amazon.com plant torn to shreds, a candle factory ripped apart, birdless trees stripped bare or ripped from the earth. Sadder still were all the people numbed by shock and terror, blank but quizzical looks on their faces, as if they were seeking an answer to a cruel riddle while standing next to the smashed and twisted ruins of what used to be their homes. It was unbearably sad. So far, there are 88 people dead, including a 5-month-old baby boy whose parents, now homeless, destitute, grief-stricken, hang on somehow — their hopes and happiness blasted to smithereens.
Decades ago, we Dalmans called my oldest brother Jimmy’s wife, Tina, a storm paranoiac. They lived in Oklahoma City not too far from Chickasha, where Jimmy, in the military, met and began dating Tina. When they’d visit St. Cloud, Tina would bring up the subject of tornadoes time and again with her voice quivering, her face turning pale.
Tornado-illiterates at that time, we would laugh at her. We’d toss off remarks such as, “Oh, c’mon Tina, tornadoes aren’t that bad. Sure they’re windy, but all you have to do if one’s coming is get out of the way, go down in the basement.”
One time Tina practically screamed at us, “What basement? We don’t HAVE a basement!”
And that was a huge part of her fear: no basement. Many residents in Oklahoma do not have basements. Tina was constantly hounding Jimmy to dig some kind of underground shelter in their back yard. Jimmy, too, would dismiss her fears as over-reactions.
It wasn’t until sometime in the late 1980s that Jimmy finally got around to having an underground shelter put in the back yard. After living in Oklahoma for 30 years with his wife and three kids, fearless Jimmy must have finally seen the light. It must have dawned on him that yup, Tina was right, tornadoes are bad. Really bad. Duh!
Jimmy died of a heart attack at age 51 in 1990, but it’s a good thing he had that shelter built. On May 3, 1999, a series of tornadoes with winds exceeding 300 mph, roared through Oklahoma. Forty-six people died, 800 were injured, more than 8,000 homes were destroyed.
One of the worst tornadoes rampaged from Chickasha (Tina’s hometown) to south Oklahoma City where Tina, her kids and some neighbors were stunned by terror. They crammed together in that back-yard underground shelter as the tornado howled like 20 freight trains less than a mile from them. It took Tina the “storm paranoiac” almost 30 years to convince Jimmy to install that shelter. His family is forever grateful that he did. Finally.
Minnesota is not tornado-proof, obviously. I recall a vicious tornado that ripped through Fridley in 1965, killing 13 people. I remember rushing to Hoffman, west of Alexandria, to cover for the newspaper the aftermath of a tornado that had struck. The family members stood there, blank faces, looks of dazed disbelief. Up in a tree was a battered car. No deaths, thank goodness.
Climate change must be mediated; there is not a day to lose. Storms, fires, hurricanes get worse every season. Who knows but God forbid that Minnesota might someday, sooner than we like to think, become a northern extension of Tornado Alley.
