Storms rip through area

By Dan Linehan
The Free Press

LE CENTER July 31, 2008 10:11 pm

— 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.
“My bedroom needs dustin’,” he deadpanned to McLaughlin after his yard was clear.
To the west, near St. Peter, Shoreland Country Club was closed Thursday after the banquet hall roof was picked up and tossed in the yard. The ceiling remained, but water leaked through, soaking the hall floor.
The club was hit especially hard because it’s on some of the highest ground around, unshielded by trees, general manager Mark Fitzenberger said.
He couldn’t predict how long it will take to re-open the club — state health inspectors will play a large role in that decision — but he did say the priority is to clear the course’s first nine holes.
And the timing couldn’t have been worse.
A 200-player tournament to benefit the Gustavus Adolphus College football team was scheduled for Friday.
In Mankato, Vikings Village didn’t escape unscathed.
The VIP tent near the practice fields’ end zones and the Miller End Zone Bar were both destroyed. The Vikings were practicing at River Falls, Wis., on Thursday and it was unclear whether or not Viking Village would be re-opened in time for Friday’s 3 p.m. practice, village coordinator Shane Bowyer said.
The Mankato area didn’t have the widespread damage seen in Le Center, but had its share of massive trees felled.
A Broad Street tree fell onto a roof and Washington Park lost a big one.
As many as 10,000 people lost power, an Xcel Energy spokeswoman said, and 5,600 were still without power as of 4 p.m. or so. Xcel expected power to be restored by noon Friday.
Authorities in Mankato, North Mankato and St. Peter said they’ll be canvassing neighborhoods on Friday and Monday and asked residents to put debris in city boulevards, but not in the road.
On North Mankato’s Belgrade Avenue, homeowner Susan Padilla was lucky.
Not as lucky, perhaps, as the baby sparrows that had nested in her hanging fern baskets, which took a beating from the wind. Padilla checked the baskets herself, and found the sparrows safe.

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