Ten years.

[mrissa]

Ten years ago today, Gustavus Adolphus College and the rest of St. Peter, MN, were hit by a tornado. Like most of the students, I was away on spring break. I believe that this directly caused the zero fatality rate among the college students -- we all saw how people behaved when the sirens went off for previous events. If we'd all been around, there'd have been someone who was finishing a sociology paper, someone else who was just going to have a look.

I didn't learn so much from the tornado as from its aftermath, which seemed to stretch on forever. I guess the main thing was, there's no natural disaster so bad that the behavior of humans afterwards can't mitigate at least some of it for some people -- and there's no natural disaster so bad that the behavior of humans afterwards can't make it significantly worse. Primates are like that, I guess.

It feels like a decade. It really does. Close and yet distant, that's what decades feel like. I'm not getting out my old journals to bring the anguish and the worry closer or to feel more distant from that teenage girl. I don't want to relive, and I don't want to forget. Remembering is the right compromise between the two.

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am nothing like kalikanzara on this (which is not to come out and say that she's insane, mind you, not in so many words, mind you, because I am a Minnesotan, and that would not be nice), but I seem to be a great deal more comfortable with tornadic storms than a lot of coastal folks. When we lived in the Bay Area, one of our friends was trying to convince me that tornadoes were scarier than earthquakes. But with tornadoes there's warning: sure, it trashed the house my friend Heathah and her family were living in at the time, but they had gotten enough warning to be somewhere else. Not so for earthquakes.

The summer I was in Ohio doing a physics REU, one of the guys with me was a walking stereotype of a macho New York Italian-American boy, how you doin', barrel chest and jeans/white tank top and like that. (Except, you know, for the physicist part. Also I have no idea how stereotypical it is to get existential when drunk; I haven't closely investigated that part of regional ethnic stereotypes.) And he was in a cold panic when the sirens went off the first time. Demanded that we take him to the airport right away. I said, "Oh yeah, that's smart, get in the air when there might be tornadoes around." His voice went up two and a half octaves. He was really, really not okay with this. And it was a tornado watch; it wasn't even a warning.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

So, to paraphrase, earthquakes don't EAT YOUR HOUSE except on the occasions when they TOTALLY DO. Have I got that right? :)

[kalikanzara.livejournal.com]

There is no DSM-IV category for storm chasers. :)

Since I, too, am Minnesotan, I'm gonna have to offer you a chance to come storm chasing.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I couldn't possibly, but thanks for the offer.

[kalikanzara.livejournal.com]

No, really, it's no bother at all. I have bars to go with, too.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh, well, if there are bars to go with, that puts a different complexion on it completely.

A rather paler and more sunburn-prone one, but never mind that part.

[redbird]

We don't get sirens with our weather warnings, so he may have miscalibrated how serious something had to be to cause that signal. Even when there's a category 3 hurricane charging towards us, they don't set off a warning siren. Lots of warnings on television, radio, etc. Newspaper stories, with advice to keep an eye on the weather stations/websites/etc. Reminders that the eye passing over does not mean the danger is finished. But not sirens. They can close the state of Connecticut without setting off a siren, so you walk to work in the rain and that's when you learn the governor has told everyone to go/stay home.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We tried explaining to him that no tornadoes had actually been spotted, but things went quickly off the tracks again when we got to what would happen if they did spot one.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

My hometown recently-- like eight years ago-- put in lightning warning sirens. They respond to changes in the air, something involving ions.

I don't think anyone's been hit by lightning there, ever.

The sirens go off pretty much randomly, and no one can tell the difference between one long blast (seek shelter fast!) and three short sounds (it's safe to be around!), so we just ignore them.

I have met people who think tornadoes happen all the time. I can't shake the feeling that tornadoes don't happen. This in spite of the fact that construction is still not done with after the 2006 tornado waltzed through the downtown.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

I have another friend who was a student there at the time. I should ask her what she thinks about the ten year anniversary.

[laurel]

I can't imagine what it would've been like to live in St. Peter during or after that storm.

I know that I found it heartbreaking just driving through St. Peter (during drives between Minneapolis and Sioux Falls or Sioux City).

I once had someone riding with me on one of those many trips who hadn't been to St. Peter before and I had a hard time articulating just how bad it was. I just kept muttering about the beautiful trees.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

What still breaks my heart is the trees. I see why the planted the fast little fruit trees right away. What I don't see, and never will see, is why they didn't come in and plant additional oaks that summer. It meant that three or six months after the tornado, things looked far better than people expected -- and ten years after the tornado, it still looks like 3-6 months after for me.

This is Minnesota. We need oaks and birches, poplars, stands of evergreens. Flowery fruit trees are all very well -- there's a little one in my front yard -- but we need more. And we needed more then, and we knew it.