St. Peter commemorates 1998 tornado, recovery

March 30--ST. PETER -- Don Shelby's familiar voice went out over the packed auditorium in St. Peter High School Thursday, exactly 20 years after his voice told WCCO-TV viewers that a devastating series of tornadoes had struck Southern Minnesota.

More than 800 people from all walks of life, all over the city, gathered to commemorate the 20 years of recovery and growth the community has seen since the March 29, 1998 tornado that changed the face of St. Peter.

The event began with a tape of Shelby's broadcast right after the storm.

"When you see the number of homes destroyed here, the number of businesses destroyed here, how badly they were hit," Shelby said 20 years ago. "It is amazing to believe, that, that not everyone would be killed in this storm that left a path three-quarters to a mile wide right through the bank of the Minnesota River right here in St. Peter."

In the 1998 tape, Shelby stands in front of the crumbled St. Peter Community Center, which was the high school years before that. On Thursday he spoke briefly about how seeing the destruction affected him greatly as a journalist. Then he read excerpts from the book "Twist of Fate," a compilation of stories from the tornado.

More than 17,000 trees were downed in St. Peter, and more than 2,000 homes were damaged.

"From Ruth Carter's story: 'We got under the steps and hung onto the door jam in the bathroom shaking like a leaf, repeating "Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy," ' " Shelby read.

Shelby read Bruce Gray's first-person narrative of the storm:

"I turned to run, closing each door behind me and telling Sue to get the cocker spaniel and retreat as far as she could away from the windows, we huddled under the table as far as we could go to listen to KRBI, and within seconds KRBI was off the air," Bruce wrote. "It sounded like a freight train going through our home. At that point, Sue and I said goodbye to each other and we thanked each other for the 42 years we'd been together."

The clock in Old Main on Gustavus Adolphus College stopped at exactly 5:29 that day, so at 5:29 on Thursday the crowd had a moment of silence for the two lives lost in the storm: Six-year-old Dustin Schneider and 85-year-old Louis Mosenden.

A bell rang out in their honor. Steve and Diana Schneider, Dustin's parents, were at the ceremony.

Medea Myhra's son Nik played T-ball with Dustin, Medea Myhra said after the event. She said she remembers thinking the boy's face on the news looked familiar, and her son said, "That's my T-ball friend."

Sen. Amy Klobuchar spoke about St. Peter's strength during the recovery.

"Twenty years ago this community and the families that lived here were shaken to the core and that happens to people and that happens all over America," Klobuchar said, "but it leaves the question: When the cameras are all off, what do you do about it? And boy, did this community respond. Your strength came from the sense of community, your belief that you had the responsibility to come together and lift one another up."

In the months after the tornado, then-state Rep. Ruth Johnson, DFL-St. Peter, introduced a bill to bring $27 million in aid to St. Peter. On Thursday, she said the bill's passage showed how government at all levels can work together to help a community.

"Anyone who has come to St. Peter and knows what this community has been through can't help but just express a great feeling of gratitude," Johnson said.

Mayor Chuck Zieman read out the names of the seven St. Peter men who died in Vietnam to commemorate Vietnam Veteran's Day, which is also the anniversary of the tornado and read a proclamation from Gov. Mark Dayton.

In the weeks after the storm, there was a curfew in St. Peter and many lived without power.

Arrow's Ace Hardware and Paint sold as many batteries as they normally would in two or three years, owner Dave Neiman said in a videotaped interview shown at the ceremony.

"I felt like I had to make two years worth of decisions in two weeks," Neiman said.

When the post office announced it would be delivering mail, Neiman had to quickly order more mailboxes for the more than 100 people who had nowhere for their mail to be delivered.

In another video, Ken Westphal, the vice president for finance and treasurer at Gustavus in 1998, described what it was like to make decisions in the wake the storm and how alumni came in droves to help the campus, which had damage to every building. The college had a $50 million dollar insurance claim.

"We knew that we needed to send a message to the region that, yes, we are going to be rebuilding," Westphal said.

City Administrator Todd Prafke had just started his job when the tornado hit. He said in another taped interview shown at Thursday's event that the disaster changed the city from a "community that just kept going to being a community that decided to invest in the community."

He said it was a change in mindset that has propelled St. Peter forward for the last two decades.

"I think we're widely seen as a community that gets back up, and I'm really proud of that," Prafke said, tearing up. "It impacts me in lots of ways and how people love the community you know, and how cool is that? That's what we live for. That's why we live in communities."

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