MPR’s Laura McCallum reports on another round of June thunderstorms pounding the Twin Cities. Storms rumbled through the state on June 27th and 28th, damaging homes, trees, and power lines. The Saturday storm brought down trees in St. Paul’s historic Summit neighborhood.
June 1998 was memorable in Minnesota for a rash of three powerful thunderstorms to hit the state, causing extensive damage.
LAURA MCCOLLUM: Just when many Minnesotans were done cleaning up from the last storm, another round blew through the state, complete with hail, lightning, fierce winds, and a few confirmed tornado touchdowns. It was the third major storm system in a little more than a month, and the fourth this year, starting with the March 29 tornadoes that hit Southern Minnesota.
This weekend's storms uprooted trees across the Twin Cities, some 1,600 in Saint Paul, where they blocked streets, crushed cars, and landed on houses. The tree in Hugh Renton's front yard is 94 years old and stood nearly 70 feet high before Friday's storm knocked it onto his Summit Avenue brick house. Renton says a limb crashed through his bathroom window, but the rest of the home seems intact.
HUGH RENTON: The house is well built. If it was a house today, it would be all on the ground. You see some of these new homes, where the tree hit it and everything's laying in shambles.
LAURA MCCOLLUM: A crowd gathers in front of Renton's house to watch as the mammoth tree is sawed apart, limb by limb. Renton says his nephew is in the tree business, otherwise he'd be on a waiting list for a couple of weeks. Tree services can't keep up with the demand. Renton jokes, he even beat the state. At the governor's mansion, two houses down. Trees are snapped in half, but haven't yet been removed.
Farther west on Summit Avenue, Friday's storm knocked another massive tree onto Su Allegro's yard right before her home was to be featured in the Summit Garden Stroll, a walking tour of 18 gardens along the street. People didn't seem to mind. They just sat on the tree and admired Allegro's garden.
SU ALLEGRO: I think most people feel really bad about the tree. Couple joke about it's, are we trying to make some type of a statement?
LAURA MCCOLLUM: Allegro's block was still without power yesterday, and some parts of the Twin Cities might have to wait until tomorrow for power to be restored. The outages also left many traffic signals dark, creating treacherous intersections. NSP spokesman Pat Culbert says restoring power to Saint Paul was tougher than anticipated.
PAT CULBERT: It's difficult to get through a lot of the trees and the damage, and so all of that adds up to a process that's just take longer, taking longer than what we would like.
LAURA MCCOLLUM: Culbert says 1998 will definitely go down in the record books for its extensive power outages. The biggest, by far, was the May 30 storm, which left more than 480,000 Twin Cities customers without power at its peak. In comparison, at this weekend's worst, 140,000 metro customers, and nearly 20,000 outstate residents were without power.
The National Weather Service says 1998 is the worst in recent years for severe thunderstorms, and there could be more in July. But Minnesotans will get a break for at least a week. No widespread storms are predicted for the July 4 holiday weekend. I'm Laura McCollum, Minnesota Public Radio.
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