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LORNA BENSON: People who find themselves in the path of a tornado are sometimes shocked by how little time they have to respond. In the case of Sunday's tornado that hit North Minneapolis, residents had at most seven or eight minutes to find shelter after the first tornado sirens were activated. Those who didn't hear the warning sirens described being jolted from naps and conversations with neighbors as the tornado descended rapidly upon them.

The National Weather Service says it sent out a warning within minutes of seeing the tornado develop on radar. A survey of major television and radio stations in the metro area showed that within six minutes of receiving the tornado alert, all of them had interrupted their programming to announce the warning.

SPEAKER 1: Severe weather in our area, there is a tornado warning that has just been posted for Anoka, Hennepin, and Ramsey counties.

LORNA BENSON: But by that point, the tornado was already bearing down on Esther Carroll's North Minneapolis house. She hadn't heard the sirens, and she wasn't listening to a radio or television.

ESTHER CARROLL: There was no time to do anything. If you were in it, you got caught in it.

LORNA BENSON: Sunday's cooler temperatures didn't seem like the sort of weather that would spawn a tornado. Carroll had no inkling of the possibility as she went about her day visiting with neighborhood friends. But the National Weather Service office in Chanhassen was aware as early as Sunday morning that severe weather might break out later in the day. At 8:00 AM, meteorologists revised their forecast to include a moderate risk of severe weather that afternoon. As the day progressed, a worrisome spin developed in the winds of the upper atmosphere, causing even more concern.

Around noon, Chanhassen meteorologists joined a conference call with colleagues at the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. As a result of that call, at 12:07 PM, the National Weather Service put out a tornado watch for the entire southeastern quarter of Minnesota, including the Twin Cities. Two hours later, thunderstorms began rolling through the southwest metro. Meteorologist, Jim Taggart, was watching radar at the Chanhassen office that afternoon when a thunderstorm just north of Eden Prairie caught his eye. It was around 2 o'clock. Taggart says within the span of a few minutes, the rotation inside the storm became much tighter. Tight rotation is one indication that a tornado could be forming.

JIM TAGGART: Just like, you-- you're looking at a drain spout or something like that. You can see the tight circulation with it. And that's when we see something like that. That's indicative for tornado formation.

LORNA BENSON: Radar is only one tool in tornado detection. On the ground, weather observers are also needed to confirm what technology suggests. Hundreds of trained spotters, many of them also amateur Ham radio operators, were on duty throughout the metro area that afternoon. While Taggart was watching the storm start to rotate on his radar screen in Chanhassen, a weather spotter called in, confirming the rotation was visible in a massive wall cloud that was now over Saint Louis Park. At that point, Taggart knew a tornado could be forming. Though it didn't appear to be on the ground just yet.

The weather service decided to issue a tornado warning immediately. As the warning specifics were being compiled by a computer, warning coordination meteorologist, Todd Krause, got on a special radio that allows him to speak directly to county and city emergency officials. Krause told them to activate their tornado sirens. His order went out at 2:10 PM. Krause says he couldn't have gotten the information to them any faster than he did.

TODD KRAUSE: The circulation of the storm didn't even show up until maybe about three or four minutes before we issued the warning. And a few minutes later, it was on the ground in Saint Louis Park.

LORNA BENSON: The Hennepin County Sheriff's Office says it activated its tornado sirens, including those in North Minneapolis, within 45 seconds of receiving the weather service warning. Mike Mcllheran heard the sirens as he drove to an abandoned mall near his home in Brooklyn Center. Mcllheran is a weather spotter.

MIKE MCLLHERAN: Where it was actually out the other day it was right over by these doors.

LORNA BENSON: He picked the mall location because the large, empty parking lot surrounding the structure gave him a good view of the sky over North Minneapolis. As he got out of his car, he turned his gaze to the Southwest, where the rotating wall cloud had last been reported.

MIKE MCLLHERAN: As I did, there just-- a very distinct wall cloud. And you couldn't tell how far down it was actually going. You couldn't tell it was actually on the ground because of the trees over here.

LORNA BENSON: Then a minute or so later as the storm moved into North Minneapolis, he saw pieces of lumber flying through the air. He estimates it was shortly after 2:15.

MIKE MCLLHERAN: When all of a sudden, as I'm standing here, debris started falling out here. And there was actually somebody's small shed and pieces of it landing out here in the parking lot.

LORNA BENSON: While Mcllheran was watching the storm move into North Minneapolis, Esther Carroll was visiting her next door neighbor's apartment. The North Minneapolis resident shared her story while waiting for disaster assistance at the Minneapolis Convention Center this week. Carroll says she never heard the tornado sirens, but she did notice that her ears kept popping as she was talking. Then she heard the classic sound of a tornado, a freight train.

ESTHER CARROLL: I just knew it was something wrong with the popping in the ears, and I'm on the ground. And we just took off running.

LORNA BENSON: Carroll made it safely to her basement, though she can hardly believe how little time she had. Charles [? Polis ?] is also unnerved by his close call. The North Minneapolis man was taking a nap when suddenly his house started shaking.

CHARLES: I felt a little [IMITATES CRASHING] and then the windows started caving in. And then we just-- I yelled everybody to run for the basement.

LORNA BENSON: [? Polis ?] didn't hear the sirens either, but he did know that there was a tornado watch that afternoon because he saw the alert on his cell phone before he took his nap. He now plans to buy a weather radio to make sure he's more aware the next time a tornado warning is issued in his neighborhood. Unlike some of her neighbors, [? Future ?] [? Paskins ?] did hear the sirens. They woke her up from a nap. But she didn't exactly rush to the basement as she collected her two children and made her way past her front door. She decided to peek outside to see if she could see a tornado.

SPEAKER 2: So we open the door, and there it was. It was up in the air, and I couldn't believe it.

LORNA BENSON: [? Paskins ?] says the wind was so strong. She was lucky to be able to pull herself back inside the house.

SPEAKER 2: It's just by the grace of God it didn't blow me out and sweep me up.

LORNA BENSON: [? Paskins ?] made it to shelter. But some people within earshot of the sirens did not respond to any of the warnings. As weather spotter Mike Mcllheran watched the tornadoes toss debris across Highway 100, he also noticed that many people weren't paying any attention to the sky or the wailing sirens.

MIKE MCLLHERAN: I stood here watching cars going up and down the highway. I saw kids out playing soccer in the field near my home there. Nobody was taking cover.

LORNA BENSON: Even some people who took the tornado situation seriously said they didn't take cover that afternoon because they mistakenly thought the warning and the sirens didn't apply to them. The problem was traced to the copy that was written by the National Weather Service and posted on its website and broadcast in the Twin Cities. The weather service did not mention Minneapolis in the list of cities in the warning area.

The warning information did cover the Minneapolis area in other ways. For example, the warning included East Central Hennepin County, which includes North Minneapolis. The city also appeared on maps displaying the storm's path. But for people not familiar with the boundaries of the County or who didn't see the map, it could have been confusing. The National Weather Service says Minneapolis should have been included in the city list, and it's reviewing why it was omitted. Lorna Benson, Minnesota Public Radio News.