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.
SPEAKER 1: The severe storm front that flooded roadways, downed trees, and cut power to tens of thousands in the Twin Cities last night also left its Mark on Northern Minnesota. The small town of Deer River in Itasca County was hit especially hard. John Enger was there, and he has this report.
JOHN ENGER: The Northern Minnesota town, population 900, rings with the sound of chainsaws.
[CHAINSAW WHIRRING]
The smell of fresh cut pine is thick in the humid air. The morning after high winds and torrential rains, it seems everyone's out to clean things up.
ANTHONY CRAIG: First, it was just a lot of wind, and blew some of the chairs off my deck. And after that, it just escalated really quickly.
JOHN ENGER: That's Father Anthony Craig.
ANTHONY CRAIG: I heard a big crash, so I head to the basement. And the big crash was actually a tree on my garage with my car in it. So I've got to figure that one out.
JOHN ENGER: The garage is nearly cut in half by a 2 foot thick pine. The ruined structure belongs to Saint Mary's Parish where Craig leads mass, but the car is his. He makes his way through the debris for a closer look and to retrieve his priest's robes from the back seat of his crushed car.
ANTHONY CRAIG: We're going to have to do a little burial, Christian burial for it? No, I'm just kidding.
JOHN ENGER: The power is still out across much of Deer River and the surrounding few miles. Fire crews and volunteer workers are coordinating out of the Deer River Fire Department, where Itasca County Emergency manager Marlyn Halvorson directs the effort.
MARLYN HALVORSON: The storm that came through last night affected Deer River and the surrounding areas, probably about a 5-mile radius, 10-mile radius. He's not really sure yet how bad the damage is, just that scores of trees still block some of the smaller roads, and electrical crews are busy.
There's a ticking clock on Deer River's cleanup. This Friday is the start of the town's annual wild rice festival. Carnival rides are parked on flatbeds in the high school parking lot. It's one of the town's biggest events of the year. They have just two days to get the power back on and the streets cleared of debris.
On the outskirts of town, Heather [? Wise ?] isn't thinking about festivals or wild rice. She rents an apartment in the attic of the S&S Bottle Shop. She was there with her nine-year-old daughter when the storm tore the roof off.
HEATHER: I had hail coming in. It was coming in through the windows. It was coming down from the ceilings. Rain was coming in. It was terrible, terrible.
SPEAKER 2: How did your daughter handle it?
HEATHER: She was screaming under the table. I can laugh about it now, saying, I'm too young to die! I'm too young to die!
[LAUGHS]
I can laugh about it now because we made it out OK. But yeah, I'm just like, you're going to be fine. Just stay under the table!
JOHN ENGER: Like everyone else here, Wise is hard at work, saving what the storm spared and clearing away the wreckage it left behind. John Enger, Minnesota Public Radio news, Deer River.
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