Tornadoes rip through Minnesota; 3 dead, dozens injured.
Tornadoes hit Minnesota on Thursday. Three people are reported dead while dozens were injured by the twisters.
Tornadoes were responsible for three deaths in Minnesota Thursday. The National Weather Service collected 36 reports oftornado sightings, with northwestern and southern Minnesota hit hardest.
NEWSCOM
Wadena, Minn.
Police and National Guard soldiers blocked off neighborhoods Friday as city officials organized a cleanup from tornadoes that ripped through the city the night before, part of a turbulent system that fueled twisters across the state and killed at least three people.
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Dozens more were injured in Thursday's heavy weather. The National Weather Service collected 36 reports oftornado sightings, with northwestern and southern Minnesota hit hardest. If the sightings are all confirmed, it would exceed the previous state record of 27 in one day, in 1992.
In northwestern Minnesota, a woman was killed in Almora and a gas station owner was killed in Mentor. In southern Minnesota, a woman was killed when her home west of Albert Lea was destroyed.
Wadena, a town of about 4,300 people that lies 70 miles southeast of Fargo, appeared to suffer the most extensive property damage. The storms destroyed or damaged dozens of homes and other buildings, toppled power lines and left a big chunk of the town without trees. Officials met Friday morning to plan the town's next step.
"First we were outside watching it. Then we went inside and it got really, really nasty," Sara Carpenter, 18, said. Her family's home was badly damaged, and they spent the night at the AmericInn in town. "It's pretty much gone," she said of their house.
In nearby Almora, a town of about 20 people, an elderly woman was killed when a twister wiped out her home. Brittney Schulke of Almora told The Daily Journal of Fergus Falls that her grandmother, Margie Schulke, was killed and that her grandfather, Norman Schulke, suffered two broken shoulders.
In Mentor, about 50 miles southeast of Grand Forks, N.D., the owner of a Cenex station was killed when atornado struck his store. Wes Michaels' daughter told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis that her father was not supposed to work on Thursday, his 58th birthday, but that he went in to check on her because of the storm warnings. She said he ordered her and several customers into the store cooler as the tornado bore down.
"He saved me," Heidi Michaels told the newspaper.
A series of tornadoes damaged about 60 rural properties in southern Minnesota's Freeborn County, Sheriff Mark Harig said.
