“The town looks like it sits on the prairie, no trees were left standing anywhere. From a distance, you can’t see any damage to the college, it appears to be a lot of large buildings on a stark landscape,” Jacklitch said.
“The people of St. Peter have a very positive aspect about the tornado. Some have spray painted signs on their homes thanking people for their help. On one home we saw a sign which said, ‘Gone Fishing.’ They had no roof or upper story.”
Jacklitch said they were given directions to label the homes they inspected with red, yellow or green tags. The red tag means the building is not safe to enter; yellow indicates people can clean up the building, but can’t live there; green means people can live there and it also indicates to the utility companies it is safe to enter to inspect the gas lines or power lines.
“It is amazing how the storm popped up and down from location to location. We approached a church on the National Register of Historic Places and didn’t find much damage on three sides of the building. However, the fourth side had a large section missing and you could see the stained glass windows on the other side of the building through hole left by the tornado,” Jacklitch said.
She added that on many homes they saw where the roof had been lifted off and dropped back down, rafters were split and nails pulled loose.
“The communities affected by the tornado will need continued help for a long time,” Jacklitch stressed.