I remember an article I read several years ago in "The Rake".
It said "Tornadoes don't have names, they have dates and times.
The date was March 29th, 1998 and the time was 5:20 PM.
An angry Twister cut through the center of my hometown, St. Peter, Mn.
also the home town of five former Governors of our state and
a neighbor of mine who happened to marry John Denver, Annie Martell.
Her former home like my parents was on the south end of town and escaped any damages.
The twister destroyed over 500 homes, and damaged more then 1,700 more.
It totally destroyed the 2 churches I and my Hubba had gone too.
It was shortly after the Tornado struck that I received a call from one of my closest
friends, she was calling from the nursing home she worked at.
She was saddened because she had heard it on the news and she knew how close we were to so many in our hometown.
It would be around 4 months later that I would also lose her to a strep virus gone wild.
So I remember yesterday for more then one reason, and couldn't bring myself to post about it till now.
For more about the Tornado and some pictures and links, you can click on Centrisity.
6 comments:
We live in tornado ally Missouri. I remember once when I was a kid a tornado ripped our patio roof off and threw it over the fence. We were all safe in the basement, it sounded like a train.
Then six years ago a tornado ripped up through my land again, ripped all forty five feet of my front porch roof off bounced it once on off the roof of my house, a double wide, and then layed it on my sons house in the back yard. My two sons, and one of the oldest son's friends and me were home at the time. The lights had just went off as the friend was walking up on the front porch, he thought we had seen him coming and turned off the lights to act like we weren't home. Poor little insecure bugger, never would we have done him like that. Anyway, we no sooner got him in the house, and the door closed when we heard this loud noise, then a crash, the oldest son shoved me into the bathroom, me babbling about grabbing a mattress and heading for the ditch out front, him telling me to shut it and get in the bathroom, and put my head between my legs, then he grabbed his little brother out of bed and brought him in with us.
All four of us huddled in the bathroom, freaking out, the little one wakes up and asks, "What the heck are we doing in the bathroom?"
Oh it was an experience.
xx
When I was in second grade I kept having nightmares that it would flood, and I got upset every time it rained. We were living in Houston at the time and a few months later, Hurricane Alicia hit and 23 people were killed.
Believe it or not, we all had to bring excuse notes from our parents when school resumed! How's that for anal?
I lived in the Bay Area during the 1989 quake, was in college in NYC blizzard in 1996, and while living here in the Northwest, there's been the Ash Wednesday earthquake (2001) and the blizzard that snowed people in for a week (2004.) So I am apparently not a good weather luck charm. I could not possibly make this up!!
Interesting about your neighbor - THE Annie! I love John Denver.
Good Lord G, I must have jinxed myself as a tornado touched down here yesterday.
Thank God nobody was hurt, but the place where my daughter works has been leveled, thankfully she wasn't at work, and the guy who was had the good sense to kick everyone out and head up the road right before the place was smashed to smithereens.
Son's work lost a roof, and the dip sh*t management made them continue their shift???!!!??? Crazy mo fos...
I remember it well. I cannot believe it's been a decade already.
Kitty: you were one lucky chicky,
Lori: glad everyone was safe, I did think about you when they talked about the Missouri Tornado..
Jessica: Think how I feel when time flies by so fast..Yikes I hope the nest 10 years don't go by as rapidly.
I remember you telling me about this! I am glad that your hometown community could rebuild!
Still too cool that you were neighbors with Annie! :)
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