A bundle of squeaky fifth graders huddled together in the stands of Target Field in downtown Minneapolis on May 10, 2011. We had just sung the national anthem for a roaring crowd of 38,000 people to start off the game between the Minnesota Twins and the Detroit Tigers (0). After we had finished ogling ourselves in the jumbotron, we filed back to our seats in the balcony to watch the game. With very few of us properly understanding the inner workings of major league baseball, sitting on hard plastic seats in 87 degree heat and sticky humidity was looking to become a dull end to the Tuesday night. Little did we know that in just a few hours, the sky would turn vomit green, tornado sirens would start wailing, lightning would light up the sky, and balls of ice would come pelting down onto the field.
Plymouth, MN is relatively safe from natural disasters, but what we do have is enough to scare any eleven-year-old out of their wits. I grew up terrified of tornadoes. While I could handle (and sometimes enjoyed) huge thunderstorms, if you tossed in a tornado warning I’d be in my downstairs bathroom clinging to my most treasured belongings before you could say “It’s a twister!” Because tornadoes were always a possibility in my walk of life, we would take several precautions to mitigate injury and damage. It was drilled into my head from the start: if there’s a tornado warning, you go downstairs, avoid windows, and hunker down until it’s clear.
Although a tornado touch-down has never directly impacted my family, there have certainly been close calls. The storm on May 10th generated a tornado with wind speeds between 86 and 110 mph and tore the roof off of a house in the northwestern suburbs less than 20 miles from my house (1, 2). This storm was merely a precursor to the more famous May 22nd tornado that hurtled through North Minneapolis and killed one person, injured 48 others, and caused significant damage to property only 11 miles from my house (3). While these incidents don’t happen too often, there is enough memory of destruction and fear for me to take warnings seriously. So the next time you hear the tornado sirens being tested on the first Wednesday of the month at 1pm, go outside and celebrate our preparedness for natural disasters. 
Damage from the May 22nd, 2011 tornado in North Minneapolis
Sources
https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/climate/journal/tornado_110523.html
Hey Eva, great post! I also live in Minnesota, so I can understand your fear of tornadoes and thunderstorms. Since Minnesota is a roughly safe place when it comes to tornadoes, do you know how often events like these occur? When was the last that Minnesota experienced a tornado like this? Do you also know how much damage the hail did to property? Again, great post!
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