Tornadoes leave death and destruction in their wake

An elderly man is dead after a tornado hit his house in the Lake Emily area, in southern Le Sueur County Thursday night. Authorities say 90-year-old Thomas O'Brien of rural Lake Emily was found covered by debris from his home and transported him to Mankato hospital, where he died. At least 22 people were taken to emergency rooms for care, said Le Sueur County spokeswoman Roxy Traxler.

Roads in and around Lake Emily are still closed in some areas.

"There's a lot of devastation," said Tom Doherty, chief deputy in the Le Sueur County Sheriff's Office. "We have areas that you can't believe a house was there. Crops, you wouldn't even know there was a crop there. Cornfields, there's nothing left."

The tornado bounced through Nicollet, damaging at least a dozen homes, then headed east toward St. Peter, tearing roofs from farm houses and twisting trees off their trunks.

A dairy farm outside of Cleveland, Minnesota was destroyed by the tornado according Douherty. Hundreds of dairy cattle were killed or on the loose, some causing car accidents in the area.

Doherty said the warning system worked very, very well. He also said residents of Le Sueur and Nicollet Counties were lucky, because the twisters stayed, for the most part, out of heavily populated areas.

Nicollet County Sheriff Dave Lange said the worst damage was on the east side of Nicollet, but left only a couple of homes uninhabitable as it "bounced up and down" through the town of 800. Trees were blown down on the western edge of town.

National Weather Service meteorologist Karen Trammell said while there were multiple tornadoes, one is responsible for the most damage. She said the big, wide twister stayed together for at least 20 miles, which isn't typical of tornadoes. Surveyors have yet to classify the force of the tornadoes.

Trammell said the collision of warm, moist air to south with winds from the north produced low-hanging clouds that made the storm so lasting and ferocious.

Emergency management officials in the area are asking people interested in helping to stay away until Monday. They say there are still downed power lines, blocked roads and unstable areas. They ask people interested in helping to call 507-357-8211.

These storms were the second wave of what was a very busy storm day. Glass replacement companies and insurance agents are going to be busy for the next few days after these powerful thunderstorms rumbled across much of central Minnesota on Thursday.

Softball-sized hail was reported near St. Olaf College, and there were vehicles with dented hoods and shattered windshields throughout the city, the Northfield News reported.

Eleven squad cars from the Northfield Police Department were damaged, and police were borrowing squad cars from the Rice County Sheriff's Office, the newspaper reported.

"Every car in the lot was damaged," said Doug Fitzgerald, sales manager at Dokmo Ford-Chrysler. "It looks like a war zone."

At Furlong Motors in Northfield, Office Manager Marilyn Falk said all cars in the lot were damaged and there was some building damage. She estimated the damage at between $6 million and $12 million.

In New Prague, police chief Mark Vosejpka said hail smashed the windshield of a fire truck that was responding to a call of house that had been hit by lightning Thursday morning.

The lightning punched a hole in the house's roof, but there was no fire. Vosejpka said he didn't know of any other significant damage or injuries from the morning storm.

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In addition to producing large window breaking hail, the storm also dumped several inches of rain in many places, causing brief, localized flooding.

In the metro, the only sign of the storms were downed trees and tree limbs, debris from localized street flooding and piles of leaves and small branches stripped from trees.

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