Black Sunday Newspaper Accounts

Black Sunday

April 30, 1967

NEWSPAPER ACCOUNTS:

Waseca Journal

“At Waseca the storm hit without warning and no tornado funnel was sighted in the darkened skyline.”

“The storm had subsided and we had gone over to the…residence to see if we could help, the Pastor [of the Grace Baptist Church in Waseca]…’We assumed that no one had been in the house and were turning around to go back to the church when the tornado alert [siren] sounded.’ “

“Fortunately a misfortune of a week ago Saturday, probably saved the lives of members of the family. A week ago a fire damaged the house so badly that the family has been living at the Twilite Motel. …other members of the family would likely have been at home [which was leveled] had the fire not forced them out.”

“…had placed a $20 bill on the table, three feet from where the tree penetrated the building [White Castle night club on the north shore of Clear Lake]. After the storm the currency was still there.”

“The father and three sons had remained seated at the supper table [at a residence in Alden]. That area of the house was the only part left intact after the storm had passed.”

“Witnesses in nearby homes said the funnel looked like ‘a flock of crows’ as it [Owatonna tornado] approached.”

“Cleaning up this morning…found his glasses under the sofa. Two fancy plates that were hung on the living room wall were still hanging there, but they had been turned around and were facing the wall.”

“…was out in the garage trying to get a report on the weather on his car radio when he heard the roar of the tornado and they barely made it into the basement.”

“When the tornado struck…We didn’t hear much of anything except that it sounded like someone threw a hammer through our plate glass window.”

“Our ears went ‘dead’…We hardly heard a thing…”

“Monday morning he was searching for the dynamite caps he knew he had somewhere and was worried that they might explode.”

“The garage roof sailed across her backyard like a flying saucer.”

Minneapolis Star

“Through a living room window she saw the family car backing down the driveway by itself in the rain. ‘The noise was terrible…and I thought the house would go, so I ran into the broom closet.’ [She] had been told by her husband that the broom closet was the safest place in the house because of brick walls around it.”

“A Waseca County deputy sheriff said the cloud cover was so low the funnel could not be seen from the city.”

“All of a sudden the rain stopped and it was very quiet and looked as though it was clearing up. I glanced out the window and saw some debris flying by. That’s when I got everybody into the basement. There was a roar but what I noticed most was the pressure on my ears.”

“We were sitting at the dinner table eating when the picture window hit me and my husband right in the face. There was no warning. There was this terrible rain falling and all of a sudden I was diving along the floor with glass all around me.”

“And a 22-foot house trailer from the lot behind the [house] was now in their back yard, lying on its side – an eight-foot hedge between the yards untouched.”

“Concrete block foundations looked as if they had just been laid for new houses.”

“It [Albert Lea tornado] was over before people knew it was hitting.”

“Many persons in stricken areas said they were taken by surprise by the suddenness of the storm although the Weather Bureau had begun broadcast of warnings at 11:40 am Sunday.”

“I hadn’t been well and I was lying on the couch in my living room. I heard this crash. I looked out the window and saw a fir tree fall. I tried to run to the basement. I saw I couldn’t make it. I was by a planter and then I fell. I don’t know what hit me. When I came to, I was in a pool of blood. I tried to crawl out. Something, it must have been the roof, was slanted down from the planter to the dining room table. My cement steps disappeared. I tried to get out the door but I fell again. My shoes were gone. Everything was open – the door to the porch, the screens. Three men came up. One was a neighbor building a house. His place was untouched. The men grabbed me and they said, ‘Get her to the hospital.’"

St. Paul Dispatch

“…it was fortunate the residents were not in the dining room-lounge where six large plate-glass windows shattered. Their dinner hour had been changed because of daylight-saving time which began Sunday or they would have been in that area when the [Albert Lea] tornado struck.”

“It roared like a jet plane. The wind sucked me right out the door of the barn. It just picked me up and carried me out. Then the barn started coming down.”

“The Midland [Cooperative gas plant in south of Albert Lea] records and paperwork were speared on small branches in a grove of trees on the other side of the embankment.”

New Ulm Journal

“A tornado watch had been posted all afternoon, but this southern Minnesota farming community of 6,100 [Waseca] had never been hit by a tornado in recent history.”

“During the roar, [he] told his dad, ‘We should have opened the windows.’”

St. Paul Sunday Pioneer Press (May 7, 1967)

“[They] were watching television a week ago [April 30, 1967] when [she] noticed the barometer had fallen to near 28, the lowest reading she’d ever seen. Then the sound of what might have been a dozen freight trains.”

“It was over in about a minute…The living room furniture we’d been sitting on was gone – we haven’t seen it since.”

“It’s [Waseca tornado] the worst thing that has ever happened here for as long as I can remember. But almost the minute it was over, people started helping other people…They [volunteers] don’t ask for anything. But Waseca owes many people a great deal.”

The Minneapolis Tribune (May 2, 1967)

“It [Albert Lea tornado] sounded like I was 6 feet away from a big 707 jet taking off…Then a big brick section of the house fell and just missed us in the basement. All of a sudden it was over. The house was gone and I felt it raining on my face.”

“I was looking out the store window and the house just seemed to be breathing. It went in and out a couple of times and then – poof! – it just wasn’t there anymore.”

The Faribault Daily News

“At about 7 pm…we heard that sound…just like a train. We took two steps toward the basement, but didn’t go down. It was all over. I looked out the front window (facing Highway 14, just west of Owatonna) and there was the house next door in a heap on the highway…It’s so hard to understand. Why would it come along and pick out just one house from four?”

The Rochester Post Bulletin

Owatonna People's Press

Black Sunday April 30, 1967 – Publication by staff at the Albert Lea Evening Tribune

“[He]…had milked right through the storm. He heard nothing more than loud thunder.”

“An electric clock was in the kitchen. It stopped. The time was 6:13...He had left a stack of books and papers on a chair in a first floor bedroom. They hadn’t been moved.”

“All of a sudden the southeast corner of the barn roof lifted up. I laid down and covered my head…Ten minutes before the tornado, [he] was in the silo, which was completely crushed.”

“[He] related that he had just told his wife he was going to fix himself some supper and had gone into the bathroom to wash his hands. He looked out the window and saw it [Albert Lea tornado].”

“”It sounded like dynamite but was sharp like lightning…The snapping glass sounded like an electric welder.”

“I was talking to my dad on the phone…When I heard what I thought was a freight train…It was too loud for a train though…so I looked out the window and saw this cloud coming and all kinds of debris flying around about two blocks away. I ran into the bedroom and grabbed the baby. When I came out I looked out the window again and it was just down the street. I ran down into the basement and into the southwest corner. We hadn’t been there more than 10 seconds, when everything went.”

“We found a china closet and none of the dishes were broken…We found a lot of clothes that weren’t even dirty.”

“I couldn’t see the bottom of the funnel because of the other houses…The top of it was a dark gray in color.”

“All of a sudden it [wind] stopped…and the trees were perfectly still. I always heard that when the trees stand still like that, that’s the time you should go to the basement.”

“Both boys said the sky was grayish-green in color shortly after the storm.”

“It was raining hard, the wind quieted to a standstill and when my wife and I looked to the south, the sky resembled a red blanket.”

“I got an eerie feeling by the looks of the weather. I handed my son to [him] and walked eight feet into the kitchen. The sound was like that of 100 locomotives. I told everyone to hit the floor and cover their heads.”

National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office