NEW ULM — “It’s pretty scary,” according to Art Stone,”to watch that thing throw out lumber from buildings it chewed up.”

His subject was the tornado he saw once from half a mile off. His subject is still tornadoes, every time warm weather rolls around.

Everybody worries about the killer storms whose wind velocity has never been measured. But Stone is one of the few people around who are paid to worry about them. He is civil defense director for Brown County.

GETTING READY for what almost never comes is what his job amounts to. The last tornado to nick New Ulm was five years ago, when a funnel rippled the roof of the 3M building and rolled a mobile home.

Everybody has heard what to do in a tornado. The problem is remembering should one of them touch down.

“We’ll blow a warning for this area,” Stone said.”Three to five minutes of a steady tone.”

The steady tone quavers a little, he added, because the origin of the sound rotates among the three sirens the city has set up.

BUT IT is distinct from the nuclear attack warning, which has a definite variation in tone from high to low and back.

The three to five minutes of steady tone may repeat, Stone said.

The City is hoping for state help to set up more sirens next year, Stone said. People living on the edge of town and up on the river bluff have trouble hearing if the wind is strong or they have their television playing loud.

Stone said he can hear it fine in his house, which is located up the hill, but with a wrong-way wind or the television on, the warning goes awry.

If bad weather threatens, turn on the television or radio and listen for tornado information. A tornado watch means that a tornado could develop, but may not have.

A tornado warning means that one has been spotted. An actual sighting of a funnel near New Ulm and heading toward the city will trigger the warning siren.

Here’s what to do when the siren starts:

Go to the corner of the basement toward the tornado, and get under a sturdy workbench or table. It is unwise, however, to locate yourself under heavy appliances upstairs. If the house goes, the floor may collapse.

If you have no basement, take cover under heavy furniture in the center part of the house.

Open windows away from the wind.

This will allow air to escape the house when the low pressure center of the tornado passes over.

Tornadoes can destroy an entire house by literally exploding it. With high pressure air inside and low outside, the house or building may fly apart.

Most important, stay away from windows.

DO NOT STAY in a mobile home or a trailer. Tornadoes can do a juggling act with them.

Seek shelter instead inside the nearest permanent structure, preferably in a basement, underground excavation, or a steel-framed or steel-reinforced concrete building.

At work, go to the basement or an inner hallway on a lower floor. In a factory go to a shelter area or to the basement if there is one.

At school, go to the basement or an inner hallway on a lower floor. If building is of reinforced construction, stay inside. Avoid auditoriums, gymnasiums or large areas with poorly supported roofs.

If you happen to run across a tornado in open country, move away from its path at right angles. If there is not time to escape, lie flat in the nearest depression, like a ditch or ravine.

Sheriff C.A. “Bud” Geschwind recommends a culvert, if you can locate one.

Sirens remain silent after a tornado. The all-clear signal will be broadcast over radio and television.

New Ulm Daily Journal

April 25, 1976