The Nicollet/Kasota Tornado Outbreak of 2006

Growing up, it was a badge of honor that my hometown was in Tornado Alley. A tiny portion of Minnesota resides in the region, and I was part of that; however, in August, 2006, our proximity to the ever-present danger of violent tornadoes became more than a fun fact. We were in danger, along with several other small towns in the region. The so-called “Tornado Outbreak” of August, 2006, killed one person and caused upwards of $30 million of damage.

Photo: Playing on my mini playground equipment, summer of 2006, that was later sucked into the whirlwind.

On August 24th, the date of the F3 tornado that swept through Nicollet, was a few months after my second birthday. I don’t remember anything about this day, but I’ve been told my entire life about that day. My mom and grandma took me to the basement, with all its spiders and dust bunnies, to try and hold out against the storm. We’d been getting hail for a while, and as any good resident of Tornado Alley would tell you, they knew that trouble was on the horizon. We took shelter under the stairs and waited out the storm.

The tornado scored an F3 on the Fujita Scale, making it a fairly severe storm. The National Weather Service defines an F3 as having winds from 158-206 miles per hour; storms of this caliber turn over trains cars, pick up and toss heavy cars and trucks, uproot the majority of trees, and tear roofs and walls off of well-constructed buildings. A home in my town was completely leveled and others had roofs and top floors ripped off. My roof was torn almost completely off, requiring thousands of dollars to replace. In our haste to reach safety, all of my toys and play equipment were left out in the backyard; all of them were sucked up into the storm, as it touched down in our backyard, and a scrap of my toddler slide was found a few blocks away in someone’s yard. 

This storm was wicked and destructive to my hometown, but it could’ve been much worse. We’re a resilient group, and tornadoes are nothing new—one resident, when interviewed, said "There was no place for me to run to, so I lay flat on the ground and it went right over me. I got a little messy, but that's OK." We rebuilt, and if we get another tornado like this in the future, we’ll be even more ready than we were in that fateful August in 2006. 

References

One Killed as Tornadoes Move Through Minnesota, https://www.mprnews.org/story/2006/08/25/tornado

Tornadoes and Large Hails over Central and Southern Minnesota: August 24, 2006 https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/climate/journal/severe060824.html

Tornado on August 24, 2006 10:26 AM https://data.sctimes.com/tornado-archive/minnesota/5532984/

Fujita Scale https://www.weather.gov/bmx/fujitascale#:~:text(F3)%20Severe%20tornado%20(158,and%20thrown.