Staff photo by Fritz Busch Former Comfrey Mayor Linda Wallin stands next to a memorial tribute to the people of Comfrey remembering the March 1998 tornado and rebuilding the community. Given by Mathiowetz Construction Company, which led the tornado cleanup, the memorial is located outside the Comfrey Community Center.

Tomorrow, March 29, marks the 25th anniversary of the series of tornadoes that swept through southern Minnesota.

The tornadoes, 13 in all, according to the National Weather Service, first hit near Lismore in Nobles County. The worst of the tornadoes was an F4 that touched down in eastern Murray County and ground along for 67 miles through Cottonwood County. It hit the town of Comfrey head on, nearly wiping the small community off the map. It swept through Brown County, between New Ulm and Hanska, causing heavy damage to farms and homes in its path. It finally dissipated near Nicollet, but a new tornado formed just east of Nicollet, an F3 that swept along to the northeast and ravaged the town of St. Peter. Four more smaller tornadoes kept up the assault, damaging Le Center, Lonsdale and near Castle Rock.

In the aftermath of the tornadoes, people from around the state came to help clean up not just the towns that had been affected, but to help clean up the farm fields that were littered with all kinds of debris. A local group led by Bill Koeckeritz, Jim Thomas and Frank Stuckey organized volunteers to walk through farm fields with buckets, picking up sheet metal, nails, splintered wood and shredded insulation so that farmers would be able to start planting their crops.

Disasters tend to bring out the best in people, and that was amply demonstrated by the armies of volunteers who came to help.

Within three years, Comfrey was rebuilding with a new school, a new community center and a new church to replace the ones that had been destroyed.

To mark the 25th anniversary, Comfrey is holding a commemorative service at the Comfrey Community Center at 3 p.m. on Wednesday.

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COMFREY — Former Comfrey Mayor Linda Wallin took leave from her job as a lab manager at the Springfield hospital for about a month after the March 29, 1998 tornado demolished much of her community. She had more than enough to keep her busy taking care of Comfrey.

For six days a week, she worked on local, state and federal relief agencies, attended meetings, made calls, wrote letters and filled out paperwork. She took Sundays off.

Wallin is no stranger to the excitement, being a leader and all the work involved. She was mayor for six years and a city councilor for a decade.

About a year and a half earlier, as a write-in candidate, Wallin was elected mayor on a coin flip after she and another write-in candidate both received the same number of votes. Another candidate, a former city councilor, was six votes behind the women.

After a month of just working on tornado recovery efforts, Wallin went back to work in Springfield on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, for about three years. She did City of Comfrey work Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, mostly working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and State of Minnesota. She was assisted by city clerk Linda Friesen Weber.

“The Internet was just starting. I wanted to be able to do FEMA forms electronically but they didn’t do that. Everything was on paper. It was very time consuming. Everything was submitted by hand. It was a nightmare,” Wallin said. “We worked in a trailer behind the former city office.”

Wallin was ironing at home on a Sunday afternoon when the tornado hit.

“My husband Lee was a storm spotter. He came home at about 4 p.m. in the afternoon. He and a friend always went out to the ridge between Comfrey and Mountain Lake,” Wallin added. “They saw a big storm that looked like a wall cloud. They never made it to the ridge because the storm hit before they got there. He said he put right foot to the floor to avoid all the suction,” said Wallin. “The tornado hit the substation and knocked out electricity, which was good because we would have had fires.”

Wallin said she went into the basement when the storm got nasty in Comfrey. Walking up the basement steps, she radioed the Springfield hospital about Comfrey being hit by a tornado, so they were aware.

Long rebuild

“It took us about three years to rebuild the city,” Wallin said.

With so much of the city destroyed there was a question about whether it would pay to rebuild.

Besides dozens of homes, most of the major buildings in town — churches, the school, the community center, were destroyed or damaged. Business owners wondered whether there would be any people left in town if they decided to rebuild.

Five days after the tornado, however, it was decided to rebuild the school if financial help was received. The school meant families would stay in town, and that anchor kept the town going.

“We decided we needed to keep the school for the good of the community,” said Wallin.

Wallin said the federal government paid for 80% and the State of Minnesota 20% of costs to rebuild public buildings.

The rebuilding included a much larger community center, fire department and public school that combined the school and city libraries and a children’s daycare.

“We had many meetings each week for a long time. Region 9 was a godsend. They helped us out big time with everything.”

Wallin said Second District Congressman David Minge, the American Red Cross, Brown County Crisis Support Group and a Lutheran Disaster Response team were among the people and agencies that helped with emotional support and disaster response.

“St. James Fire and Rescue were the first ones here that I saw. The Minnesota National Guard was here right away too,” Wallin said. “They helped us close the roads to shut the town down at first. They went house to house to see if everyone was OK.”

Wallin said the Red Cross set up cots for people to use in the Springfield High School gym but none of them were used because Springfield residents came and took all the storm refugees to their homes. Wallin said other people with destroyed or damaged residences stayed at the homes of friends and relatives.

The post office and businesses with damaged or destroyed buildings set up shop in trailers.

Meetings were held in the Catholic church basement for a year.

Wallin said Gov. Arne Carlson came to Comfrey and asked her what she wanted to do about rebuilding.

“I told him we wanted our school back so the businesses will stay and the rest will fall in place,” she added. “He said OK, you’ve got three years.”

According to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, 125 single-family homes were destroyed, 105 homes had major damage, 96 had minor damage. Eight mobile homes and two apartment buildings were destroyed.

Downtown buildings that were able to be repaired were a bank, beauty shop, medical building, funeral home and Wiese Chevrolet.

Harvestland Cooperative had major damage. All grain bins were destroyed. Wallin Builder Supply was destroyed but quickly replaced by Clements Lumber.

The City of Comfrey received $480,058.85 in insurance payments, $1.6 million in available state economic grants and $4.3 million federal and state funds for the City of Comfrey through damage survey reports.

The City of Comfrey loaned $450,000 to businesses since the tornado.

“We now have an EDA (economic development authority) revolving loan fund. A city this size (392 people) usually doesn’t have that,” Wallin said.

“The two Lutheran churches merged into one church, rebuilding after the tornado and it works fine,” she said.

Wallin said Comfrey has a K-12 school, bar and grill, grocery store, locally-owned convenience store, body and repair shops.

She worked at the Springfield hospital for 21 years and 10 years as a lab technician at Fairmont Medical Center before retiring seven years ago. Wallin said she enjoys traveling which includes motorcycle trips.