MPR’s William Wilcoxen visits St. Paul’s Highland Park neighborhood, where the clean up along the Highland Parkway is taking place after a windstorm downed much of the tree canopy in area. Along with trees, homes and cars were left damaged or destroyed.
Highland Parkway is a broad residential boulevard divided by a grassy median. It runs from the Mississippi River up a hill to Highland Park and slopes back down to rejoin the winding river on the hill’s other side.
The May 30, 1998 storms were part of a larger weather event called The Southern Great Lakes Derecho of 1998, which traveled 975 miles from southern Minnesota to north central New York in 15 hours, with an average speed of 65 mph.
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WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Highland Parkway is a broad residential Boulevard divided by a grassy median. It runs from the Mississippi River up a hill to Highland Park and slopes back down to rejoin the winding river on the hill's other side. Most homes on the Parkway are spacious and the yards well tended, but the Street's most distinctive feature has been its canopy of stately shade trees.
Most of those trees fell suddenly in Saturday night's storm. And since then, residents have been working to free houses and cars trapped under 50-year-old maples and birches. Half a dozen Saint Paul homes were destroyed by the winds. After clearing away the tree that fell through his window, Dick Laly called himself fortunate compared to his neighbor.
DICK LALY: A lot of her house, her kitchen ceiling-- and I know it was a ceiling because her light fixture was in it --ended up in our front yard. And we took a lot of sheetrock and insulation out of our backyard too. That I imagine came from her house.
WILLIAM WILCOXEN: While only a few homes were destroyed, many were damaged along more than a mile of Highland Parkway, homeowners who'd had their cars flattened, windows broken, and roofs damaged spoke primarily about how lucky they were. When the storm claimed Giancarlo's car, he rented another because his wife is nine months pregnant. He hopes electricity can be restored this week, but he knows the trees that felled the power lines must be cleared first.
GIANCARLO: We actually thought we were pretty hard hit. But in relation to what other people are dealing with, we were pretty lucky actually.
WILLIAM WILCOXEN: John De Paul lost shingles, siding, and a lamppost from his home. The only tree left standing on the block is in front of his house.
JOHN DE PAUL: Yeah, I tend to feel almost guilty that so little happened to me and so many others got it so bad. I feel very fortunate. Very blessed.
WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Crews of volunteers helped clear a path through the trees that blocked Highland Parkway over the weekend. Now, the median is piled high with stumps, trunks, and branches De Paul says the storm spawned the type of emergency mentality that pulls together neighbors, families, and even strangers who have helped during the cleanup.
JOHN DE PAUL: Grandchildren and nieces and nephews and friends from all over town came to help us all. So if you look beyond the rubble in the middle, you'll see that all the lawns are picked up just like they always are. So that's the pride that everybody has in the neighborhood, I think. And we're saying, well, we'll just go on. Plant some new ones.
WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Residents are thankful no lives were taken by the storm. Many are philosophical about the loss of possessions such as cars and garages. Some find the loss of trees the most difficult aspect of the storm. Gail Holcomb will miss not only the tree that was in her yard, but also the old red maple and pine trees in front of her neighbors homes.
GAIL HOLCOMB: This neighborhood, the joy of it was the huge old trees. I mean the 50-year-old pines I mentioned, those people planted those trees when they built the house, when they moved in. It was heartbreaking to see them go. And a young man who grew up in this house drove by yesterday, and he was almost in tears. He looked at this and said, my tree. Because it was a real climbable tree with these split trunks. Kids just gravitated to this tree.
WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Saint Paul officials say it will likely take at least three weeks to clear the downed trees from the Highland neighborhood. Other neighborhoods, including the West Side and the Fort Road area, were also hard hit. Mayor Norm Coleman says the early cleanup has gone smoothly.
MAYOR NORM COLEMAN: Again, the good news is that nobody got killed. The bad news is that there has been a lot of damage. We did get the streets cleared. We're working on getting trees off houses. There are a lot of houses that have trees that have fallen on that. That's going to take a while to do that. And then we'll do the cleanup. Then we'll start picking stuff up. At the same time, NSP is working very, very hard to restore power and making sure that we don't have any safety issues with either gas or electric. So it's going to take a little while to pull things together.
WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Damage assessments are underway around the Twin Cities area. Washington County Sheriff, Jim Frank, says the magnitude of the storm has become more apparent in the last two days.
JIM FRANK: What probably is now becoming apparent that wasn't the first day is there's a whole lot of damage throughout the metro area, with trees and houses and things like that. And it's just a lot more than what anybody understood because they were focusing on their own communities. I think it's now just being coming a little bit more clear what a large problem this was through the whole metro area.
WILLIAM WILCOXEN: The National Guard has been deployed to Washington County to protect areas without power. By some estimates, it could take until Thursday to restore electricity throughout the region. I'm William Wilcoxen, Minnesota Public Radio.