Tornado

[Macthediver]

I guess we were lucky last night when the tornado came threw town. Like a good citizen when the sirens went off I took my weather radio and went out in the street to see what was going on. They kept saying their was a tornado to my south and should be in the area shortly? There was one large gust at one point but I could see several miles south with nothing hanging down and nothing over head. It was pretty black to the north but again I could see nothing north and no rotation. I came back in the house when it started to rain pretty hard. I turned on the scanner to try to get and idea of what was going on and the scanner was going nuts. After listening to what unit's were being called in and where they were going. I decided to just go into work even though I'm on vacation and hadn't been called. It was raining pretty hard with small hail as I got closer to my station which is just a mile up the road. I start seeing downed trees power poles leaning small items laying around. I'm wondering how I didn't see anything from home? Everyone was of course was out at the station and the tec rescue truck was gone too. So I listened to the radio a bit took a couple phone calls waited to see what was going on. After a bit I radio the command post and ended up putting on my gear. I hoofing it up the street a block to the local Kmart and hooked up with a unit working there. The store lost a big part of it's roof and a dozen house north east of the store where in pretty rough shape.
So this little tornado ran a pretty narrow swat about two city blocks wide from the south west to north east threw south part of the city. Lots of homes with roofs torn off power lines down and trees on homes. Couple big commercial building in the area where it first hit town really got whacked. It ended up being the first total recall of all off duty personnel I've every been involved with in 24 years in the fire service. I have no idea what the total damage cost will end up at but I'm amazed no one got hurt beyond a few scrapes. I can't imagine what the people down south have to deal with when the storm tracks a mile wide. I went in a around 4:45pm on my own the big recall I'm told came at 5:00pm they cut a bunch of us loose at 11:30pm when everything had been searched. They kept some of the hazmat and tec rescue guys to chase any remaining gas leaks. It's the first time I have ever seen fire fighters and rigs from 5 other departments moving around our city. The Dive unit was out with the city fire boat checking for boaters in the area on the river. The worse part of this small incident was the number of people trying to come into the area to get a look. It was hard enough just to move fire rigs from one area to another with trees and line across streets. Then you mix in car loads of people and groups of pedestrians and bicyclist's site seeing.
I just got a call from my lieutenant asking me how many hours he needed to post on my time sheet. He said early this morning a home in the storm area burned. Guess they were using a candle as their power was out. So is that still considered storm damage or just carelessness? My guess is there will be injury calls now today as everyone starts cleaning up. The area was a buzz with chain saws already last night when I came home.
I feel really bad for the folks down south our twister was just a baby compared to theirs. Their dealing with deaths and 100s of injuries and we just got scuffed and it is a mess.

Mac

[trappnman]

wondering how I didn't see anything from home?

you look grasshopper, but you do not see........ 

we were right in the middle of the tornados- they hit south by you, and north in TCs. not much wind, but over the weekend another inch and a half of rain.

the older I get, the more I dislike storms!

[RdFx]

Mac  tornado went north west of me and other tornado went north east of me.... still got alot of wind and over an inch of rain.  Bee hives stayed put  but did see some trees bent over with roots torn out.

[Bogmaster]

 North Minneapolis is a mess, 1 dead several injuries.Thousands of trees down, Joplin,Mo. was hit harder than anyone.
 Bad winter and looks like we will have an interesting summer--stay safe guys.
 Tom

[rzwieg]

My part of WI hasn't been slammed in many years...

Smoke and prayers to everyone there.

[Macthediver]

Tom I heard you guys got hit up that way about the same time we did here. I think even the twister in MO was in the same time frame, ours, theirs and yours all within the same hour. The one here was smaller than the one you guys had up there, they're saying ours was 1 & 2. So it was small compared to the one up your way or the monster in MO. If ours would have been as big as the one in MO I probably wouldn't have this computer here to type on.
I'm really ready for some kind of consistant weather pattern, 4 days left of vacation and it's just gloomy again today.
The first bad storm we had here pounded everything two blocks south of me with baseball size hail. I was just on the north edge of that with small hail. 2900.00 hail damage on my car and I will have a new roof put on sometime this summer. Now this twister goes just north of me with not a branch down here in my yard. So now I feel like I'm sitting in the bull'seye for the next thing to take a whack at us?


Mac

[Bogmaster]

 Mark, I am afraid we are all in for a bad summer weather wise. We are supposed to have 3 days without rain, but it sure doesn't look that way now.
 Tom

[hillbill]

is it just me or are natural disasters gettin more common?
tornadoes, floods, ice storms. i think we dun pissed god off.

[RdFx]

Hey Boggy , nothing like a little rain to keep your buddys , mr muskrat and mr beaver happy with plenty of water.......supposed to rain right thru weekend.   Did you take the Mrs fishing?

[Bogmaster]

 Lee, we did go fishing.Caught about 150 fish.Caught about 100 sunfish--all to small to keep.About 30 or 40 perch--the wife caught one, bigger than a dinner plate(thats the only fish we kept other than a few large golden shiners that bit).Also caught small crappie and a small bullhead.
 She enjoyed eating the nice perch she caught, and had a good time.Next week I think we may look for another lake to try.I should try the st. croix, lived near it for 25 years and havent fished it in 35.
 Tom