North Dakota Residents Picking Up Pieces After Weekend Tornadoes

Aug. 30--HILLSBORO, N.D. -- Glen and Barb Hultin made the longest drive of their life when they found out a tornado had hit their home Saturday evening.

The couple was six hours away in Watford City, N.D., when they first heard of the severe storms whipping through the area and the destruction left in their wake. Arriving home at 2 a.m. Sunday morning, they took in the chaos around what was once their farmstead.

"The house is destroyed, the garage is blown away--everything is just gone," Glen Hultin said, standing in a yard peppered with debris from his home, machinery shop and trees.

The tornado ripped the roof from the house he and his wife helped build in 1993. Insulation from their home clung to tree branches and jagged holes gave onlookers an unintended peek into the equipment buried under debris in the shop.

Two tornadoes touched down in the region Saturday, with damaging winds and hail accompanying them. Some in Grand Forks County saw hail more than 2 inches in size, according to the National Weather Service.

Three days after the storm, as the Hultin family waited for insurance agents to arrive at their home and survey the damage, they were picking up pieces of memories to salvage.

Among them were a music box given to Glen and his wife by his aunt as a wedding present 35 years ago. His daughter Katie Paulson pulled it from the wreckage as it played the hymn "Children of the Heavenly Father."

Tragedy surrounded the family Monday but their demeanor remained light as they sifted through belongings.

"Dad, I'm not a fan of your new skylight," Paulson said as she picked her way through the remains of the living room.

The family has received numerous offers of help from the nearby community--offers they'll be able to take them up on once the damage is photographed and surveyed for insurance. Grand Forks drone firm SkySkopes also donated its time to use a drone to take pictures Monday of damage for the family.

Just down the road, the Taft Elevator also sustained major damage with roofing ripped from buildings and grain bins, dents in the sides of bins and tanks, and other equipment left mangled by the winds.

The tornado that hit the Hillsboro area came at about 6 p.m. Saturday, about two hours after another tornado touched down near Arvilla, N.D.

Sunday storms

Sunday brought no reprieve to the region with more severe storms bring tornado sightings and dumping rain.

Northwestern Minnesota saw heavy rainfall and a report of a tornado near Beltrami in Polk County. In nearby Fertile, preliminary data from the weather service shows the city saw more than 5 inches of rain from the storm.

Farther south in Norman County, the town of Gary also saw heavy rainfall and power outages lasting into Monday.

Jody Beauchane, who handles emergency management for Polk County, said he observed damage at a farmstead near the Polk County/Norman County line that was apparently caused by a tornado touchdown.

He said a barn was knocked down at the farm and other buildings were damaged.

Garry Johanson, emergency management director for Norman County, said many trees in the northern part of the county were knocked down by Sunday's stormy weather and some spots in the rural part of the county received as much as 10 inches of rain over the weekend.

He said there was evidence of tornadic and strong straight-line winds, with some trees looking like they had been twisted.

Johanson said he was at a farmstead owned by Keith Chisolm in rural Gary when he and others heard sounds coming from a 100-year-old barn that collapsed during the storm.

Inside, they found cattle that had survived the collapse, but were stuck beneath a fallen hayloft.

The animals were ultimately freed, Johanson said.

Forum News Service contributed to this report.

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