Sheryl Wilbur was still half-asleep when she was hoisted from her bed and into her wheelchair as water started pouring into her nursing home room.

She was shaking and scared as she heard the cracking noise of Central Health Care’s south wing roof being torn away.

Wilbur was “shaken up a little” but credits staff for working together to get residents out of the leaking wing.

Tim Taylor, just down the hall at the Le Center nursing home, maintains he was having a swell time throughout.

“I would’ve loved to go to a window and check it out,” he said.

No one was apparently hurt — at least in Le Center and Mankato, where Immanuel St. Joseph’s emergency room saw no storm-related injuries Thursday morning.

But the hurricane-force wind gusts in Le Center destroyed at least one other roof and downed countless trees. The National Weather Service reported an 84-mph wind gust at Le Center High School.

A flagpole at the nursing home was as parallel with the ground as most poles are perpendicular, its flag removed and draped across a nearby bench.

The roof of the historic downtown building at 2 E. Minnesota St. was curled up in a corner “like a sardine can,” said Wanda Arndt, co-owner of a first-floor business. Sunlight poked through broken boards on the building’s unused second floor, and water was soaking into nearby apartments and businesses.

One of those was Norita’s Antiques, which will close because of the extensive damage caused by rain and falling ceiling tiles, owner Norita Holmes said. Workers were busy emptying the store Thursday afternoon as Holmes watched.

“I’m out of business,” she said.

Elsewhere in Le Center, a huge maple tree crashed in the yard of unlucky homeowner Scott Kudrle. It took out a work truck, a garage roof and a boat. And, of course, he’ll miss the stately tree.

Still, residents were pitching in across town to help out.

Angie McLaughlin, who drove from Montgomery with two young children, saw an elderly man sitting with a yard full of debris.

So the McLaughlins got their rakes out and helped, pleasing wise-cracking homeowner Harry O’Brien.