A severe thunderstorm moved through St. Peter July 20th, 1998, downing trees and damaging roofs, with winds of 60 miles an hour. MPR’s Lynette Nyman interviewed Tom Gravelin on the impact this has on his life and how he plans to rebuild.
St. Peter is still recovering from a devastating tornado in March. Since that tornado, Nyman has talked several times with St. Peter resident Tom Gravelin. She called again after the latest storms, and he described what happened.
SPEAKER 1: Today at about 11:45, the sirens went off again in Saint Peter. And of course, everyone went outside to look because we're all so well-trained. I suppose, like every good Minnesotan, when the sirens go off, of course, we go outside. I went outside and the sky was clear and blue and nothing out of the ordinary.
And about 10 minutes later, 15 minutes later, the sirens went off again. I looked outside and the sky was absolutely black to the West and Southwest. Wind started picking up and the rain began pouring down. And I grabbed my little dog and came to the cafe next door, the Chestnut Tree, and headed down the basement. And we sat down in the basement for about a half an hour while the storm blew over.
Afterward, I did a little scouting around to find out what exactly had happened. And the unofficial report is 103 mile per hour straight line winds. Locally, the fire department has been busy mainly removing tree limbs from downed wires and making sure power is shut off in the right places. We're without power right now where I am.
SPEAKER 2: What did you think when you saw the black skies again and you heard the sirens?
SPEAKER 1: I thought, oh, nuts, not another round. The same old thing. And everyone is very, very sick of it. In fact, that was the first response from the few people on the street. When I poked my head out the door, they said, oh, I'm so sick of this stuff. I don't want it anymore. It's time to move to Nebraska or Kansas where they don't have this kind of thing. Just everyone is tired.
Some minor damage to construction that had been going on or reconstruction repair, siding strewn here and there about the yards. And my two new lawn chairs that I bought about a month ago to replace the ones I lost in the tornado are now gone. I don't know where my new lawn chairs are in the next County.
When I had my house torn down, I left an addition, an old addition standing, and I left part of a wall of the old house, which was where the old house was connected to the addition, just to save me the trouble of having to rebuild a wall immediately. Well, that wall is now blown away, so I'm going to have to rebuild the wall right away. I mean, the wall had to come down anyway, I suppose. So again, the storm saved me some work, but I wish it would have been a little more in accordance with my schedule than its schedule.
SPEAKER 2: So you're keeping on, then?
SPEAKER 1: Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER 2: You haven't changed your mind about rebuilding?
SPEAKER 1: No, not yet. Although I thought about it last night as I drove past couple very nice houses for sale. Thought, well, jeepers, I could save myself several months or a year of hard labor and just buy a nice house and not have to bother with all of the trouble. But still, that's not what I want to do. It wasn't what I wanted to do before the storm hit and isn't still. I want to build a house, so that's what I'm going to do.
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