Horror at Home

Aug 28, 07:18 AM

Current Headlines: By Stephen J. Lee, Grand Forks Herald, N.D.

Aug. 28--NORTHWOOD, N.D. -- Daylight Monday revealed the reach of the tornado that ripped through here Sunday night.

It reached from one end of town to the other. It spread nearly a mile wide. It damaged three-quarters of the homes in town, maybe more. It flipped cars out of their parking spots, pulled trees out of the ground and tossed mobile homes into the air. It killed one resident and injured 18 others.

Its reach: Near total.

Residents, emergency responders and state leaders tried to get their arms around the damage as the day went on and the extent of the work ahead became clear.

Greg Gust, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Forks, toured the site Monday. Although it was not as intense as the tornado that hit Fargo 50 years ago, it was as wide or wider, Gust said. "It measured up to eight-tenths of a mile wide," he said. It is being categorized as an "F-3, possibly an F-4," Gust said, on the Enhanced Fujita scale. "Windspeeds of 160, 170, maybe 180" miles per hour. It will take more analysis to determine if it was an EF-4, he said.

The tornado appeared to widen after it hit this city of 1,100 about 8:45 p.m. Sunday, Gust said.

The damage to Agvise, the large crop and soil research firm on the northeast side of Northwood, was near total. Nearby, Krabbenhoft Chevrolet's cars and pickups lay strewn across a field, looking like they had rolled and bounced into wrecks.

Axles from semi-trucks and trailers lay flung into a field 100 yards from Denny Gabriel's large yard full of gravel-hauling trailers and semi tractors. Gabriel's large shop was torn open, its steel spread across a half mile or more. His home next door lost much of its roof.

Richard Johnson has been Northwood's mayor for nine years and lived here all his 57 years. "I've never seen anything like this," he said. "I'd say at least 80 percent of the houses, maybe closer to 90 percent, got hurt," he said. Northwood's people live in about 360 houses and apartment buildings and mobile homes in two parks, he said.

Johnson owns Krabbenhoft Chevrolet downtown and he parks used cars and pickup trucks on the edge of town along state Highway 15. Those vehicles were scattered into heaps of crumpled metal, one across the highway in a flattened field of corn.

"I think between 15 and 20" vehicles were wrecked, Johnson figured. "That's not my concern right now. It's getting the city back."

The community was showing what it's made of, Johnson said. "I guess these old Norwegians just want to roll up their sleeves and get to work," he told a news conference. But in an interview, he gave a more sober assessment. "Everyone is digging in and cleaning up. I don't think it's sunk in yet. So often we might want to think that if we can just get things cleaned up, everything will be all right. Well, everything isn't going to be all right."

One good sign is all the help that is coming in from surrounding communities and individuals, Johnson said. "Last night, the fire department from Binford (N.D.) showed up and they must be, what, 70 miles away?"

Killer tornado

The tornado killed one man and injured 18 other people, many of them in the two mobile home parks in town. None of the injuries reportedly are life-threatening, although some are serious, Grand Forks County Sheriff Dan Hill said.

Larry Weisz, 57, was pinned between the floor of his trailer home and a tree, Hill said. Weisz died at the scene. It took heavy equipment to remove Weisz from his destroyed home. His wife, Ann Mercer-Weisz, was hugged and comforted Monday by friends.

Another trailer also stood naked, a huge TV still facing the couch, with the walls fallen away like the backside of a movie set.

No one was around, except Northwood firefighters checking out the damage, one videotaping it.

A large number of the homes in Northwood were damaged by the tornado, which appears to have entered the southwest corner of town and moved across to the northeast corner, where the small mobile home park where Weisz lived was left mostly destroyed.

Across town, in the other mobile home park, Stephanie Yates tearfully called for her Siamese cat Monday morning as she walked around the blasted-out ruin that was her trailer home.

A passerby pointed out the big gray cat sitting placidly against the only wall left standing. Yates scooped up her cat and held her close while crying in both relief and horror at the devastation her cat survived.

Yates, Michael Melfald and Melfald's son, Blaine, 5, got a phone call Sunday about 8:30 p.m. from Yates' mother a few blocks away. "She heard the weather report on TV. We just got out of here five or 10 minutes before it hit," Melfald said. They spent the night in a neighbor's home a few blocks away.

Monday morning, Melfald's and Yates' living room stood open to the scudding clouds that soon dropped more rain. The capricious nature of the tornado was evident. "My dad and mom live right over there," Melfald pointed out a blue trailer not 100 feet west of his. "It didn't touch them. They waited it out in there."

Russell and Verna Melfald didn't have a chance to get out in time, they said. Russell, 73, needs oxygen and has a tank hooked up while he walks around his deck. "I went out and was going to get the van," he said of his vehicle parked about 10 feet from his front door. "It was so dark, I couldn't see the van. Then it hit, and I jumped back inside and just held the door shut. I saw trees go."

Melfald stopped, as his emotions cracked his voice. "We started praying, and we were crying. Because we thought we were going to go. Then, we talked to the guy up there, and he said everything would be OK."

"After it let up, about a half hour, it just poured."

He and Verna have been married 48 years, and he's lived in Northwood 60 years, Melfald said. "We've never seen anything like this."

Cleanup begins

Early Monday morning, Kevin and Shelly Wold from rural Hatton, N.D., pulled into the Cenex station and, wearing windbreakers against the rain, looked around for somewhere to volunteer.

Wold has a large fork-lift and wanted to haul it into Northwood to start hauling away debris.

But most volunteers were being asked to hold off for now, because there are too many unstable buildings and the situation needs to be more organized, Mayor Johnson said.

Northwood Police Chief Keith Prosser was in charge of dozens of law enforcement and emergency workers, from a command center in the parking lot of the Cenex station north of town. Prosser was strictly limiting access into the city, giving tours to reporters and photographers infrequently.

Gov. John Hoeven said authorities completed three sweeps through the community in a search for more casualties.

He said that as many as 100 North Dakota National Guard soldiers would be activated for debris removal and other tasks in and around Northwood.

"I've seen a lot of disasters," Gov. John Hoeven said. "I have not seen a tornado hit a small town like this."

Greg Wilz, of the state emergency management office, said he had never heard of a tornado damaging so much of a North Dakota town, comparing it to one that hit Elgin, N.D., when he was a young boy in the early 1970s.

"This is as bad as I've seen it," Wilz said.

Amy Mastrud said, "I barely made it down into the basement before it hit. I just made it through the door. Then the windows began breaking. But everyone is OK." Her three children, Brianna, 16, Austin, 14 and Sierra, 8, said "it sounded like a freight train," Mastrud said as volunteers moved downed trees away from her house on the north side of town. "It was just dark," she said. "Then, I remember the windows breaking."

Her house seems basically OK and her family can remain there, she said.

But officials say they are worried about people staying in their homes, especially when the power is out and being reconnected. So, everyone is being asked to move out of their homes and find relatives or friends or emergency shelters for now, Wilz said.

The Community Bible Church in Northwood sheltered about 50 people Sunday night and remains the main public shelter in town. The church suffered its own tragedy Sunday morning: Its pastor, the Rev. Bill Fretwell, died unexpectedly at the age of 48.

Turtle River State Park, about 16 miles north and east, also was named by Gov. Hoeven as an emergency shelter for Northwood residents.

Kent and Patty Gronlie, who farm about seven miles northeast of Northwood, brought in a small John Deere loader tractor to help clear yards and streets of downed trees. Kent Gronlie, who graduated from high school here in 1970 and has been active on the school board, took a break to appeal to Hoeven a few feet from the damaged school building.

"The vitality of the community has been destroyed," Gronlie told Hoeven. "We've got to have a lot of help. So whatever you can do will be much appreciated."

The extent of the storm is hard to comprehend, Gronlie said.

"I live seven miles away and insulation from some place was lying in my driveway this morning," Gronlie said.

Hoeven promised help and Gronlie jumped back into the cab of the loader and went back to work.

No school

Michael Lyste was ready to start ninth grade Monday, but instead walked around the wreckage of the school with Eric Antonson, an eighth grader. "I didn't want to go to school, but I would rather go to school than see this happen," Lyste said.

Superintendent Kevin Coles said the 250 students and their teachers have a week off while school officials figure out how to get classes started again when the school won't be usable for months.

"We're looking at all the options," he said.

Lyste and Antonson already had heard students would be split between Larimore, 13 miles to the northwest, and Hatton, 13 miles to the southeast.

Administrators in Larimore said they offered whatever help they could give.

"No decisions have been made," Coles said.

Don Offerdahl, who came from Bismarck with Hoeven to tour Northwood, represents the state Electrical Board, which licenses electricians and oversees the electrical hookups in private residences.

But for Offerdahl, who grew up near Northwood and graduated from high school here in 1972, Monday held emotional surprises and shocks.

"It's overwhelming," Offerdahl said as he looked at the destruction on his hometown's downtown. The museum, in the historic church-like fire hall, had its windows blasted out into the street. Bricks from the former Guenthner's grocery store lay strewn on the sidewalk.

"I just never imagined this."

Reach Lee at (701) 780-1237, (800) 477-6572, ext. 237; or slee@gfherald.com.

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