Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Remembering the Tracy, Minnesota tornado of June 13, 1968 June 13, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:33 AM
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“YOU COULD SEE THINGS FLYING in the air…big chunks of wood from houses…everything was circling.”

Forty-two years ago today, then18-year-old Al Koch watched as a tornado, which would soon turn deadly, aimed for his family’s Custer Township farm one mile east of Garvin in southwestern Minnesota.

“It looked like it was coming toward us, then it took a jog,” he remembers. “It was real wide and real black.”

The twister had changed direction, heading at an angle straight toward Tracy four miles to the northeast. When the Koch family—Melvin and Delpha and sons, Bruce and Al—realized that, they sounded the alarm. Delpha phoned the Tracy Police Department dispatcher at about 6:50 p.m., warning of the approaching tornado.

Civil defense sirens sounded five minutes later. And at 7:04 p.m., the twister struck the southwestern edge of this farming community.

The F5 tornado, the most powerful with winds of 261 – 318 mph, ravaged the small town, leaving nine people dead and 150 injured.

If not for that warning from the Kochs, more people likely would have died. The family was honored for their efforts, and drew much media attention.

Today, at age 60, Al recalls how his family nearly immediately drove to the Tracy hospital, where Delpha worked as a nurse. They knew she would be needed. According to news reports, even local veterinarians were called upon to treat the injured.

The Kochs dropped Delpha off and then left Tracy right away. Al remembers, especially, the people he saw walking among the destruction. “They were kind of black, covered with dirt.”

Details like that and his fear that the tornado would hit his family’s farm, even after more than four decades, stick with this Garvin farmer who had just graduated from Tracy High School in 1968. Years later, he would marry Janette, one of my best friends from Wabasso High School.

Earlier this spring while researching the Tracy tornado, I learned of Delpha Koch’s early warning to the community. I e-mailed Janette and asked if Delpha was related to her husband. Of course, she was and that’s how I ended up with a thick packet of newspaper clippings about the deadly twister. These were stories I had never heard.

I was only 11 ½ when the storm struck. On that deadly evening, my dad watched the tornado through an open barn door on our farm near Vesta. He thought the twister was much closer than Tracy 25 miles to the southwest. My family eventually drove to Tracy to see first-hand the destruction. What I witnessed left me with a life-long respect for—even fear of—the powerful strength of a tornado.

Now, 42 years later, as I paged through these first-person accounts, I sensed the horror of those who experienced the June 13, 1968, tornado.

I read, for the first time, the names of those who died: Nancy Vlahos, 2; Walter Swanson, 47; Ella Haney, 84; Mildred Harden, 75; Ellen Morgan, 75; Otelia Werner, 75; Fred Pilatus, 71; Paul Swanson, 60; and Barbara Holbrook, 50.

I read of bodies laid out for identification in the hospital laundry room. I read of the father who struggled to hold onto his 12-year-old daughter as tornadic winds tried to suck her from his grasp. I read of the 50-year-old woman who came out of her basement too early and died. I read about one victim, who had a big, long piece of wood driven through his legs. I read about the woman found lying dead near her couch, presumably unaware of the tornado because she wore a hearing aid and did not hear the storm coming.

I read. I cried.

Today, please take a moment to honor the memories of those who lost their lives in the Tracy tornado of June 13, 1968.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A Minnesotan reflects on tornado terror during Severe Weather Awareness Week April 22, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 1:21 PM
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I bought this tornado video for my brother Brian, who is fascinated by twisters, at a garage sale several years ago. I've never given it to him, nor have I watched the film.

I FIGURE THAT sometime tonight, when I wish I was peacefully sleeping, I’ll dream about tornadoes. I’ll likely awaken, terrified and shaken.

Tornadoes terrorize my sleep all too often. It takes only news about a tornado or viewing a photo or television footage of a tornado to trigger the night-time trauma.

Today, with warning sirens sounding state-wide during Severe Weather Awareness Week, the atmosphere in my bedroom is primed for stormy weather.

Now, you’re likely wondering why I’m so inclined to having nightmares about tornadoes. The answer is simple: the June 13, 1968, Tracy, Minnesota, tornado. The twister was an F5, the most powerful, with winds of 261- 318 mph.

I was 11 ½ years old when the destructive tornado struck the southwestern Minnesota prairie town, killing nine and injuring 150. If not for the fact that I lived within 25 miles of Tracy, the tornado likely would not have impacted me so much.

But, I remember because my dad, who claims he watched the twister from our barn, drove our family to view the devastation. I can’t recall much other than a twisted, mangled mess of debris, a tossed boxcar and snapped trees. And, somewhere, tucked in the recesses of my memory, I store this tidbit about a piece of straw driven through a board. True or not, I’m unsure.

The fact that nine people died in Tracy haunted me and remains with me to this day. As a child every strong wind storm and every tornado watch or warning sent fear shivering through my body.

Then in 1979 (or 1980, my mom and I can’t recall the exact year), fear became reality. The Redwood County farm where I grew up was struck by a tornado. I was grown and gone, living and working in Gaylord as a newspaper reporter, when I got the call from home. The storm had partially toppled a silo, tossed silage wagons about in the field, and wrenched a railing from the house, among other damage.

Fortunately for my family, my dad, who would have typically been in the barn at that early evening hour, had left to get my sister from nearby Wabasso. My mom, home alone, recalls seeing the top of a tree bend and touch the earth. She saw debris—probably that railing—fly past the window as she descended the basement stairs.

So, now you understand why I don’t take tornado warnings lightly. For years, I freaked out whenever tornado sirens sounded. Then I became a mom and realized that I needed to curb those fears for the sake of my children. I didn’t always accomplish that. But I tried.

Some of the 46 tornadoes featured in the video.

OUT OF CURIOSITY, I checked today on Minnesota tornado statistics, from 1950 – 2005, compiled by the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office in the Twin Cities. Polk County in northwestern Minnesota has had the most tornadoes, 47, during those years. That follows with 42 in Otter Tail County, three counties to the south.

Counties with 30 or more twisters include Stearns and Kandiyohi (39); Freeborn (37); St. Louis (31); and Nobles (30).

In Redwood County, my home county, there have been 23 or 24, depending on which statistic page you view on the weather service Web site. Only one Redwood County tornado-related death was recorded in those 55 years, on August 4, 1958.

Rice County, my current county of residence, has had 17 – 21 twisters, again depending on which page you view.

But the one fact I find most interesting is this: Minnesota’s only two F5 tornadoes—the most powerful—occurred in adjoining southwestern Minnesota counties. On June 13, 1968, the F5 tornado struck Tracy in Lyon County killing nine. Twenty-four years and three days later, on June 16, 1992, an F5 twister struck just 30 miles away in Chandler in Murray County. One person died and 35 were injured.

Now after doing all this tornado thinking and research, I expect tonight that I will be chased by tornadoes.

What are your worries related to tornadoes? Have you experienced a twister? I would like to hear your concerns and stories. Please consider submitting a comment to Minnesota Prairie Roots.

And, when those test warning sirens sound this afternoon and again this evening, have a plan to keep yourself safe.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling