Storms rip through area

In the summer of 1995, I worked a three month internship at The Warroad Pioneer, which I'm sorry to say has since ceased operation. This was the first professional newspaper that I worked for in my career, and it turned out to be a wonderful experience. I had only worked at Bemidji State University's newspaper for about a year and half before landing the internship. At The Pioneer I gained experience in sports, feature, beat and government reporting. I designed pages, took and developed photographs and was responsible for community relations. The best part is that I remain friends with the owners nearly 30 years later.

July 11, 1995

By Devlyn Brooks

Mother Nature gave us a reminder of her awesome power Sunday, July 9, as winds reached 60 miles per hour, unofficially, and Warroad was bathed in 1.14 inches of rain from a passing storm.

Trees were blown down, a railroad crossing was damaged and power lines were knocked down south of town, all due to the high winds.

About 7:45 p.m., ominous-looking clouds filled the sky and forced some people to seek shelter at The Gardens and the Warroad High School due to tornado warnings.

Dennis Erickson, of Warroad, was one of the dozen or so amateur radio operators that were sent out to monitor the storm clouds as part of the Skywarn system. While he was monitoring the sky he witnessed a funnel cloud from in the sky about five miles south of town. He said he was able to videotape it.

"I was watching several different cloud cells moving through the area," he said. "Then one cell moved on by. All of a sudden, right behind it, the clouds were swirling around and formed the beginning of a tornado cloud.

"I almost didn't believe what was happening ... was really happening," he said. "It never did touch down though."

He said that the cloud later moved off to the southeast toward Beltrami County and then it dissipated.

"The funnel had gotten low enough to skim the tops of trees," Erickson said. "If it would have touched down, there would have been major damage."

Connie Johnson was the net controller during last night's storm. The net controller is the communication center of the Skywarn system. It is the net controller's responsibility to monitor all communication of the field monitors, and to relay that information to the sheriff's department if necessary.

According to her notes from Sunday night, at 7:26 p.m., marble-sized hail was reported in the Warroad area.

At 7:34 p.m., Dan James, a Warroad monitor, reported that there were tree limbs down in Warroad, and that a railroad crossing had been damaged. He also said that the fire department was on standby at that point, in case there was an emergency.

About 7:40 p.m., some possible funnel clouds were spotted south of Warroad. The funnel cloud Erickson spotted was one of the ones reported.

Five minutes later there were reports of "churning clouds" near Swift, which never produced any dangerous situations.

Johnson said that about 8 p.m. she sent some of the monitors home because the worst of it seemed to have passed. Also about 8 p.m., 1.8 inches of rain were reported in Swift, and at about 8:20 p.m. Bill Landby reported 1.14 inches in Warroad.

By 8:45 p.m., most of the monitors were headed home, Johnson said. Erickson called about 9 p.m. to tell her about the funnel cloud he videotaped, Johnson said.

"Dennis had me scared for a while," Johnson said. "While he was out taping the funnel cloud, I couldn't reach him on the radio. I don't like when I can't reach the monitors on the radio because it makes me wonder if something happened to them."

A tornado from the same storm system did touch down in Hallock, tearing the grandstand's roof off at the Kittson County Fair. Minutes before the tornado hit the grandstand, about 1,000 people, who were waiting for a demolition derby to begin, had been evacuated.

Other fair buildings and buildings in the surrounding area were also damaged.

Erickson described it best by saying, "It was a frightening night."