MPR’s John Enger reports from Deer River, a small town in Itasca county, which was hit especially hard by a storm racing across northern Minnesota on July 5th. The damaging rain and wind came just days before the town’s annual Wild Rice Festival.
A severe thunderstorm complex swept across northern Minnesota on July 5, 2016, producing damaging straight-line winds. Gusts of up to 71 mph were reported. The hardest hit areas were Deer River and the Island Lake area just north of Duluth.