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Off the Record: Hurricanes make other disasters look small

Off the Record

I’ve been in and covered a few disasters in my years in the news business. Most of them have been tornadoes, a couple of blizzards, with a flood or two thrown in.

I thank the Lord I have never lived in a place where hurricanes happen.

Tornadoes are terrible, but they are quick. They come and go, leaving a trail of devastation behind, but usually it is concentrated devastation.

I saw the path of a tornado that swept through Albert Lea when I lived there that was two houses wide. It went through a residential area perpendicular to the streets. The two middle houses in each block were heavily damaged. One was knocked six feet back off of its foundation. Another had the roof and front peeled off — it looked like a doll’s house opened up so some giant kid could rearrange the furniture.

The houses on either side of the tornado’s path had some broken windows, maybe, or a missing shingle or two. But they were otherwise undamaged.

The 1998 tornado that swept through Comfrey and St. Peter was unusual. It cut a wide swath, damaging most of Comfrey and devastating much of St. Peter. But it was still a mile wide.

Hurricanes are much bigger, covering much more territory and doing much more damage.

Hurrican Harvey struck the Gulf coast of Texas last week and it’s still grinding away. The high winds, rain and coastal surge did a lot of damage, but the rain — over four feet in some places — is causing increasing flooding, death and misery for the poor souls in the path.

The experts expect the damage and flooding to continue even after the rain stops, getting worse before it subsides. It will be months, years, before all the physical damage is undone and things get back to what will pass for normal in Texas. I’m sure that for many, things will never be the same.

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Kevin Sweeney has been the managing editor of The Journal since May 1985. A native of St. Paul, he worked at newspapers in LeSueur and Albert Lea before moving to New Ulm. Contact him at ksweeney@nujournal.com.

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