May 7, 2024

By Colton Kemp, colton.kemp@apgsomn.com

Some Faribault residents long held the belief that tornados wouldn’t strike the town, because it’s where two rivers meet. Local experts say this is absolutely not true, as demonstrated in 2018.

The warm winter seems to have had minimal impact on severe weather, as Rice County Skywarn Social Media Director Brian Klier noted it’s been an average tornado season so far in the United States. Still, Faribault Fire Chief Dusty Dienst and Rice County Emergency Preparedness Director Joe Johnson said it’s imperative to be aware of any possible severe weather and have a plan in the event that severe weather should arise.

The main thing both Dienst and Johnson stressed is for Rice County residents to sign up for the Everbridge Emergency Alert Notification System, which is explained in the sidebar.

“I don’t know if true that people think that their phone’s just automatically going to go off and tell them when there’s something bad going on,” Dienst said. “It will if it’s bad enough. Like a tornado or a tornado warning, everybody’s smartphone will go off. But anything less than that, you have to be signed up to a notification system in order to get that alert.”

Klier noted that Rice County sits on the northeast edge of Tornado Alley, which includes South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska and parts of southern Minnesota.

“This is an area, where warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico collides with cold, dry air from Canada, that tornadoes like best,” he said. “Locally, it’s these two types of air mixing together and creating updrafts that can start rotating to form tornadoes.”

When the conditions are prime for a tornado, a tornado watch is issued. A tornado warning means there actually is or is about to be a tornado. Klier and Dienst both gave the example of a taco.

“You don’t have a taco yet, but you have prepared and laid everything out to make a taco,” Klier said. “This is a ‘taco watch,’ and much is the same with a tornado watch. All your ingredients to make a tornado are prepared and laid out, but you don’t have a tornado yet. The ‘warning’ is when a tornado is actually occurring or imminent.”

Tornado touchdown

When a tornado touches down, having a predetermined plan can be the difference between life and death.

“Take some time to understand what the weather is going to be like every single day at the beginning of the day so you can plan for what may happen, typically in the afternoon,” Dienst said. He suggested the local media or a weather app.

“Be able to work your schedule around those times if you’re doing outdoor activities and have a contingency plan,” he said. “At around the time when they’re predicting things to ramp up, pay closer attention to the weather.”

Rice County Skywarn is consistently up-to-date on possible storm activity or other important weather information. To prepare even further ahead of time, Klier said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association Storm Prediction Center (spc.noaa.gov) and the National Weather Service (weather.gov) can come in handy.

Some of the important items to have include a weather radio, a cellphone and a way to charge it if possible. Dienst and Johnson both recommend keeping an emergency kit with enough food, water and anything else one might need to sustain themselves for three days.

They also said, if someone is driving and a tornado is headed for them, they should pull over, get out and find a low area to take cover.

“You’re hopefully not going to be there very long,” Dienst said. “So get out of the car. Don’t try to outrun it. If you actually can see it and you can stay away from it, slow down or let it pass. That’s fine, but do not try to outrun it.”

A basement or bathroom can serve as a sturdy shelter for those in their house or workplace during a tornado. However, people in especially vulnerable homes, like manufactured homes, could be put at risk.

Dienst explained that, at least in Faribault, residents of manufactured-home parks receive an alert in April that informs them of the nearest shelter in whatever language they speak. One member of the park is the designated key-holder and can help others get into the nearest school, which serve as shelters during severe weather.

Disaster response

Johnson joined the county as emergency-preparedness director on April 29, after spending 24 years working as a firefighter and EMT. After getting his paramedic certification, he worked in a number of places before ultimately landing in Northfield in 2007.

Around 2015, Johnson moved to his wife’s family farm outside of Nerstrand, where he joined the local fire squad. It only took a few years for him to be promoted to chief.

“I had a little bit more experience with larger-scale incidents and stuff like that,” he said. “And that’s my full-time job. Volunteer firefighters are great because you have people that are builders and farmers and all this stuff, a lot of people that know different things. My specialty is emergency services, so I kind of slid right into that role.”

Notably, Johnson served as part of the emergency-preparedness team in the metro during the civil unrest in the summer of 2020 and during the Super Bowl in 2018.

“It was towards the end of the unrest so I didn’t get a lot of the Minneapolis stuff,” he said. “Hennepin County really took care of all of the Minneapolis stuff because they know that area. So I didn’t get a lot of involvement, but the planning part was a really good learning experience. In the metro region, we did a lot of drills and we’d come up with plans to respond to those major incidents.”

While one might assume emergencies are completely different in the metro than here, he said a lot of the response techniques are universal.

“Preparing and responding to emergencies are very similar, no matter where you are,” he said. “You could say that there’d be different flavors.”

On the flip side, there are some nuances he said will take some getting used to, like the population differences and certain procedure within the county offices.

“Obviously I have a lot of experience responding to emergencies and overseeing emergencies,” he said. “But there are aspects of this position that I’m still learning. I’ve attended classes; I’ve done everything. But it’s still a new position.”

As the new director for Rice County, he’ll be in charge of coordinating mutual aid in disasters, like the 2018 tornados.

“So my role in this position would be … to help coordinate the resources to respond to those areas,” he said. “If Nerstrand Fire says ‘We’re out of resources. We need XYZ.’ My job is to help facilitate that across the region and call on our mutual-aid partners and surrounding counties to help get those resources.”

He also is in charge of securing funding for the cleanup, specifically so that expense doesn’t fall on the taxpayer.

River myth

As he wrapped up, Johnson also mentioned the myth that tornados don’t strike where two rivers meet. Dienst and Klier also said they’ve heard this many times from people. All three dispelled the notion.

“There’s no old wives’ tale that’s gonna stop a tornado,” Johnson said.

Klier said 2018 helped fight that myth.

“The multiple tornadoes that ripped through Rice County on Sept. 20, 2018, and the Faribault Airport in particular, is evidence that tornadoes are very real here,” Klier said. “Their ground path can go for miles, and they be quite strong even in southern Minnesota.”

Dienst also said 2018 helped to get people to stop believing the myth.

“2018 kind of took care of that idea that we don’t have tornadoes in Faribault because we have two rivers coming together here,” he said. “That is not a thing.”

Dienst finished by noting that outdoor-warning sirens can mean a lot of things, not just tornados.

“Use a local media outlet to figure out why the sirens are going off,” he said. “Don’t just assume it’s a tornado. That siren is just a notification for you to use any way you can to figure out what’s going on.”

March 22, 2024

By Colton Kemp, colton.kemp@apgsomn.com

A radar can only see so much.

As National Weather Service Twin Cities/Chanhassen Warning Coordinator and Meteorologist Todd Krause explained, it takes reliable and alert storm spotters to know what’s really going on.

Krause was speaking during a storm-spotter training for Rice County Skywarn Thursday night at Buckham West Library in Faribault.

“We’re looking at the radar, whereas storm spotters are actually looking down near the ground,” he said. “And that’s where you can actually see whatever’s going on.”

Skywarn is a nationwide program with storm spotters dedicated to providing on-the-ground updates and information about severe weather to the National Weather Service and the public. Anyone can be a spotter, but have to attend a free training session, like Thursday’s session.

Storm spotters report anything they see, but also what they can’t see. Krause said “uncertainty is OK,” referring mostly to tree lines blocking the view of the storm.

Faribault Fire Chief Dusty Dienst sometimes gives similar storm-spotter training to his firefighters, which he said helps them “get an early warning,” since they’ll likely need to be dispatched if a tornado hits.

Dienst said Krause was his own storm-spotting trainer, and he was excited to see he was willing to make the trip to Rice County to lead the session. Normally, Dienst would be leading the sessions.

As that training went on, it became clear why the NWS would need to see the lower part of the storm. Because that’s where the action is.

A storm forms when hot, humid air rises. As the moisture from the rising air is condensed, it becomes a visible, cauliflower-like cloud called a cumulus cloud. Once it reaches a certain height, it cools and comes back down.

This cycle can vary greatly in terms of speed. The faster it goes, the worse things can become. Especially when it starts spinning horizontally.

Static from the condensation creates lightning, the falling condensation can be rain or hail and, as the rotation picks up speeds, the risk of a tornado increases greatly.

As the updraft becomes stronger and humidity is sucked into it, rapid condensation forms in one spot quicker than the rest of the storm. This is known as a wall cloud. If that rotation continues to strengthen, a funnel cloud can form.

Then, if the rotating updraft builds up enough power, it blasts further and further down. Once it gets low enough and begins moving debris on the ground, the storm officially has a tornado.

While some indicators are visible on radar, almost all this activity is shrouded by the clouds overhead. This is why the NWS needs on-the-ground reports from its storm spotters.

Faribault resident Ken Warwick has attended storm-spotter training in the past, though he never really participated in the program. However, now that he’s retired, he wanted to get back into it. So he went to the training session too.

He said Krause did an especially good job at explaining the purpose of storm spotters and the stages from first rotations to a full-blown tornado.

“That radar beam doesn’t tell you what’s going on the ground,” he said. “You actually need human beings on the ground who are willing to volunteer to fill in the blank and give people a few more minutes to get to safety.”

But that’s not the only reason, Krause noted.

“If our warning says that tornadoes have been seen or there’s been damage reported from the storms, a lot more people will take shelter,” Krause said. “As opposed to us saying a warning such as ‘Radar indicated there may be a tornado.’ But when there actually are tornadoes reported, more people actually get to shelter.”

To see info on future training sessions, visit facebook.com/RiceSkywarn or skywarn.us.

February 2, 2024

By COLTON KEMP colton.kemp@apgsomn.com

Faribault resident Brian Klier was in eighth or ninth grade when an ice storm stopped his school bus in its tracks. Students had to walk home in the storm.

Luckily for Klier, his father had been following the bus. The Kliers invited many of the students into their home to wait out the storm, demonstrating a spirit for community service that hasn’t subsided.

Klier runs the social media pages for Rice County Skywarn, a citizen-run group that tracks and records all things weather. In addition to alerting the public of extreme weather events on the social media pages, he also notifies the National Weather Service and the Rice County dispatchers of what’s happening on the ground.

Klier’s latest service to Faribault is filling in the gaps in National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s data. NOAA’s website features a tool with temperature data from nearly every day between 1895-2011.

“It’s a sort of composite of records from various sources that they merged together and did quality-assurance reviews on,” Klier said. “This process was done to create temperature records for Rice County from 1895-2011. Getting data for after that in a format that can be analyzed? Really tough. You can pull up pages on the internet that will give you weather data for a single date, but a spreadsheet of high and low temperatures for years on end? Not so easy.”

However, Klier has a trick up his sleeve. On a clothesline in his yard, a Davis Vantage Pro 2 has gathered a myriad of data every five seconds since March 2011. It transmits that data onto his computer and a control panel for the machine in Klier’s home.

After months of coding data-analysis programs, learning how to extract outliers from large groups of data with pivot tables in a spreadsheet and using a combination of his own data with NOAA’s historical data, he is able to see the hottest and coldest temperature on any given day of the year.

“One thing that stuck out to me when compiling this data is that weather is very cyclical, and tends to regulate itself,” he said. “There have been very warm winters and very cold winters and very hot summers and very mild summers. We’re certainly not Hawaii here. This is Minnesota, and we certainly get a huge range of temperatures here.”

His data indicates that two days this week broke all-time heat records. A record-high temperature of 57 degrees Fahrenheit was set on Wednesday, beating the previous record of 48 degrees on Jan. 31, 1989. Another record was beat on Monday, when the high was 50 degrees, which ended the 128-year old record of 47.

This data helps people in many ways, from a grassroots level, up to the government level.

“I haven’t yet researched the best places to provide this data to aid in other’s research, but when I do, I want to make sure it’s available for free and in the public domain,” he said.

He is sometimes asked how the evolution of technology has made his job easier compared to when he found his interest in storm spotting?

“I love this question because it makes me laugh about how good we have it now,” he said. “… They only had county outlines displayed for the Twin Cities metro area, so we had to make our best guess to exactly where Rice County cities were on the radar. Only the northern border of Rice County was displayed. This is what we used both at home and in the Rice County Sheriff Department’s Emergency Operations Center to determine when we could expect thunderstorms to arrive and what their intensity was.”

Technology like near-instant radar generation that can be done on a phone or computer has made things much snappier, when it comes to weather alerts.

“These new technologies have helped us increase the warning time for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes,” he said. “And now that critical alerts can make cellphones all go off at once, it has undoubtedly saved lives and will continue to do so.”

Klier said data collection is one of his favorite tasks, but it isn’t the most rewarding part, though it is one of his favorites.

No fatalities

lier continued in the footsteps of his father, Don Klier, who storm spotted for many years.

After going with him several times to watch various types of storms, he bought his first ham radio at just 13 years old. These can be used to transmit information about what’s happening on the ground to Rice County personnel during a major weather event. Nowadays, that’s mostly happening online, which Klier helped make a reality for the county.

But he had no idea how important the quicker communication would prove to be in 2018.

It was an eerie sight near Cedar Lake. Klier was driving to his parents’ house to make sure they were OK (they were) following multiple tornadoes hitting the area and causing major damage.

As he drove, trees stuck out of houses. Clearings filled the space that clusters of trees once stood. Klier said he later saw that the municipal airport was destroyed. A weather camera on top of Jefferson Elementary School showed trees blown sideways by the wind. He said this was the most destructive weather event in his Rice County history.

But Klier and Skywarn stepped up, as did much of the community. As the social-media guy, Klier reposted emergency assistance messages. If he saw someone offering free meals, he would share the post, for example.

This is still the only time Rice County Skywarn took on a role like this. At the end of the day though, the tornadoes of 2018 caused one minor injury, zero serious injuries and no deaths. Klier’s been told Skywarn saved lives that night.

“We lucked out a little bit,” he said. “But we also did everything that we could do to get warning out to people and to stay on top of that. That’s what I felt really, really made what we were doing worth it. When I have people coming back and saying, ‘Hey, I think you saved lives that night,’ it’s a pretty cool feeling.”

October 22, 2018

By Suzanne Rook srook@faribault.com

One thing Rice County city and county officials agree on: emergency preparedness trainings readied this region to weather the Sept. 20 tornadoes that ripped through the area.

The National Weather Service is now estimating 21 tornadoes swept through southern Minnesota and eastern Wisconsin that evening. The event set a record for most tornadoes in Minnesota in the month of September. Rice County saw seven of those, Goodhue six, Waseca four, Steele two and Le Sueur one.

The strongest was an EF2 twister that began in Morristown, crossed the eastern edge of Roberds Lake, blew through the Faribault airport and headed on to Dennison. It’s estimated that those winds reached 120-130 mph.

But not all damage that evening came from tornadoes, said NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist Todd Krause who spoke Saturday at a public forum in Faribault. Some, he says came from high winds.

Jarrod Schoenecker, president of Twin Cities Meteorologist Society and a Metro Skywarn board member credited the region’s power companies, Xcel Energy and Steele Waseca Cooperative, with their quick work to restore power to affected areas. Of the 16,000 customers impacted, 40 percent had power by 7 a.m. Friday, said Schoenecker. All had power restored by Sunday evening.

According to Schoenecker, the tornadoes were the worst single event ever for Steele Waseca, superseding even the Halloween blizzard of 1991. They impacted two transmission systems: one in Northfield and the other along I-35 near Faribault.

Krause reviewed the day’s events and pointed out how NWS forecasters issued several notifications beginning shortly after 9 a.m. and throughout the day, noting that conditions were ripe for tornadoes.

The biggest issue meteorologists faced that day was the direction of the winds, which came almost perpendicular to radar. Wind speeds are best gauged when they’re moving toward the radar, he said, noting the similarity to instruments used by law enforcement.

The storms, which were fast moving, may have led residents to believe there was little to no warning, but Krause’s near minute-by-minute presentation showed how the National Weather Service was issuing warnings almost as rapidly. The first warning, which came at 5:30 p.m., noted the storm was moving to the northeast at 75 mph, within minutes it was speeding up, and by 6 p.m., the storm was in western Waseca County.

The storms rolled into Janesville at 6:23 p.m. as warnings for Rice, Steele, northern Waseca and Freeborn counties included the wording “tornado possible.

From there it was just minutes before a series of tornadoes began to strike: one was spotted about 6:36 p.m. on the eastern edge of Morristown.

Radar images from that evening show a donut-like shape, similar to a hurricane. That, said Krause is what went right over Rice County.

The response

City and county officials at Saturday’s presentation were pleased with the response to the storm, noting that strong partnerships and preparedness training paid off and helped ensure there were no serious injuries of loss of life. Tim Flaten, a Skywarn spotter and Morristown City Council member credited a mass training several years ago with Waseca County for the smooth operation.

Rice County Sheriff Troy Dunn said emergency officials divided the county into three sections and used a different radio channel for each sector. That allowed designated personnel to concentrate on their region and eliminated confusion.

Preparedness training for emergency personnel today stems from lessons learned following the 9-11 attacks where emergency radios weren’t configured so they to speak to other responders on scene. Some also comes from emergency agencies that have shared what they’ve learned during other crises.

Travis Block, Faribault Public Works director, reviewed the storm’s aftermath from his perspective, including cleanup of city streets and work to get the hard hit airport back in operation. He estimates it could take as much as 18 months before a new arrival and departure building is completed.

Demolition of the building will be a tricky process, he said, as two airplanes and the North Memorial air ambulance remain in the gutted hangar. Shifting their position could cause further damage and reduce their scrap value.

September 21, 2018

By Philip Weyhe, Jacob Swanson and Misty Schwab

Also, see this Minnesota Prairie Roots story.

The decision to declare a State of Emergency wasn’t a difficult one for the Faribault City Council, nor for Rice County, Friday. A look around at parts of town and the surrounding county made it ever apparent that work would need to be done.

A Thursday storm, confirmed by the National Weather Service Friday to have produced tornadoes in the area, made a mess of parts of the city.

Faribault Municipal Airport was mangled. Power lines and trees were knocked down and blown over across neighborhoods. Some unlucky homes were damaged, whether by swirling debris, fallen objects or sheer wind force.

“(The emergency declaration) will allow us to basically start taking action on getting repairs and everything done in a much quicker fashion,” Faribault City Administrator Tim Murray said. “Ultimately, this helps us meet the threshold for disaster relief; we want to be covered that way, too.”

According to Faribault Fire Chief Dustin Dienst, the city had received good reports of tornadic activity in Waterville and Morristown, before the storm arrived in Faribault, which allowed emergency personnel to get the sirens activated and residents properly warned.

Just after 1:30 p.m. on Friday, the Twin Cities National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado had touched down near Faribault on Thursday evening, but for those looking at Faribault Municipal Airport, it was never in question.

Airport

A call came in at about 6:40 p.m. Thursday reporting a potential tornado at the airport. Very soon after, police had Hwy. 21 closed off. Debris had been blown across the road, buildings were destroyed and planes were tossed.

Minnesota Sen. John Jasinski, who represents Faribault and surrounding areas, was at the airport surveying the damages Friday. Jasinski said he had been to Medford and Morristown, but the airport had the worst damage he’d seen.

Faribault Police Captain Neal Pederson said the damage at the airport was the worst in town.

“Throughout town, there are mostly branches and power lines,” Pederson said. “Some of the industrial park here had some damage, but by far the worst is here.”

Mary and Ron Ovans were out Friday afternoon, trying to begin the cleaning process.

Their plane, a 1958 Bonanza, had been completely flipped over. Their hangar, which they built over 15 years ago, was destroyed.

Ron said they purchased the plane about seven years ago. He was at his home in Webster when the storms hit. As soon as he heard that there was damage near Faribault, he made his way down, “hoping against hope” that his plane had survived the night.

“It was a beautiful machine. I loved it,” Ron, a retired Air Force veteran and Delta Airlines pilot, said. “Stuff happens. At least no one got hurt out here. You can always get other things.”

No one was hurt at the airport and no fatalities or major injuries have been reported in the area as a result of the storm. For all the property damage done, the process of cleaning up and repairing the airport is only just beginning.

While owners like the Ovans were allowed in to begin assessing damages and cleaning up on Friday, the heavy lifting likely won’t begin until Saturday.

“At least for today, we’re not allowing big construction equipment in. Owners can get things out of here on their own,” Pederson said on Friday. “Tomorrow, teardown and construction can start. Today’s a little windy yet to be messing with sheet metal.”

Pederson asked that people don’t drive by and look at the damage, as it is causing traffic congestion.

“Just for safety’s sake, we ask the people that don’t need to be out here not to come out here to look… We don’t want to have any accidents from people traveling needlessly through here,” he said.

He added that the city has been logging names of people that want to volunteer at the airport if the opportunity arises. At this time, however, volunteers are not needed, as most of the work will require heavy machinery.

Residences

Sue Allen stood in her kitchen at 426 1st St. NW in Faribault and watched the tree in her front yard fall into her house around 6:20 p.m. Thursday night when the storm hit.

“It was surreal, like it was in slow motion,” said Sue.

She and her husband, Chuck, were both in the house at the time. A window shattered upstairs, and they now need new siding and a roof as the fallen tree took out a corner of their house.

Friends of the Allens came to their door to help clean up the damage at 7:30 a.m., and Brian Bauer, who lives in the area, offered to cut down the branches and make sure the tree didn’t damage the house any further. The Allens weren’t the first stop for Bauer, who planned to check out other damage later.

“It’s amazing how nice people can be,” said Sue.

If he were in a similar situation, Bauer considered what he might want his neighbors to do to help him.

“I figure the least I could do is go around and help people,” said Bauer.

About one block south of the Allen house, Damon Owen rested in his home at 501 Division St. W after getting 12 staples in his head. The injury occurred during the storm Thursday night when a tree in his front yard fell over and pinned him and Jonathan Bunton beneath it. Bunton, who has 47 stitches as a result of the incident, was still in the hospital recovering Friday morning.

Owen said they called 911 after managing to get out from beneath the tree, but lines were busy. As a result, the pair drove themselves to the hospital.

Reporting, cleanup and repair efforts were underway all over town by early Friday. Volunteers are ready to go, according to city leaders, and staff is prepared to communicate with state and federal officials on potential disaster aid.

September 18, 2011

By Joseph Lindberg and Derek Wehrwein, editor@faribault.com

Diligently navigating his sport utility vehicle through southern Faribault’s flash-flooded streets, John Rowan, assistant director of emergency management for Rice County, leans his ear closer to the radio after a spurt of incomprehensible chatter.

Silence. Then a crackle of radio.

Then, action.

“There’s a kid in the water,” Rowan says as he heaves the wheel around and mashes his foot to the floor. “That’s the danger with so much water accumulation. People don’t realize how dangerous it really is.”

Rowan’s SUV pulls around another corner and the two-ton vehicle is immediately faced with an unusual problem: The 17th Street Southwest and Prairie Avenue intersection is blocked by more than three feet of standing water.

A fire truck has already tried to ford the intersection, only to retreat behind a plume of white smoke, its motor struggling for air. Sirens blare as more emergency vehicles converge on the area.

Forced to move on foot — and still without detailed information about what’s going on — Faribault’s first responders begin running to the scene.

Completely unfazed, Rowan gets out and starts jogging up the road.

The War Room

An hour and a half earlier, Rowan is standing anxiously in the Rice County Emergency Services Center, monitoring radio frequencies and multiple computer monitors packed with multicolored weather readings.

The July 15 storm that’s about to dump more than four inches of rain on Faribault in a tiny timeframe is cutting through Mankato, with its eyes set on southeastern Minnesota.

From this room, Rowan and Jennifer Hauer-Schmitz, director of Rice County emergency management, will evaluate electronic data and official real-time reports from assorted storm spotters and county law enforcement officials — all in an effort to keep 64,000 residents of the county aware of the danger posed by severe weather.

Tucked neatly inside the emergency services center in downtown Faribault, the “war room” (as Rowan affectionately dubs it) feeds data and reports from all over the county to Rowan and Hauer-Schmitz through radios linked with other cities, counties, National Weather Service (NWS) outlets and storm spotters.

At 2:55 p.m., a severe thunderstorm warning is issued for Mankato. Given the storm’s eastward trajectory, Rice County’s stable of around 20 storm spotters is put on alert, though not all are given instructions.

Severe thunderstorm warnings are issued when NWS radar or storm spotters report at least 3/4 inch of rain or measured wind speeds of at least 58 mph, according to the NWS.

“Our response really depends on the location, the time and what kind of storm we are dealing with,” said Hauer-Schmitz. “Every storm is different, and you have to treat each threat like it could be the big one, which hopefully we never have.”

Spotters are not dispatched at night — even with constant lightning, it’s incredibly difficult to identify elements of a storm that could help county officials. Even in the daylight, spotting is equal parts experience, knowledge and art.

With that, Hauer-Schmitz leans back and raps her knuckles on a nearby wooden table for luck.

At 3:24 p.m., spotters around Morristown begin feeding reports of a “bow echo” that has expanded past the current NWS warning in Mankato. Rowan reluctantly pulls his eyes from banks of radar and wind data on his computers and leans into the radio microphone.

The radio links him directly with the NWS outlet in Chanhassen. After identifying himself, he asks a simple question.

“Is there concern?”

The radio crackles back with a yes, and a warning to prepare for strong winds.

A bow echo is a line of severe storms curved backward at the ends, giving it the appearance of a drawn bow. They bring especially strong winds — so much so that formations like these account for a great deal of structural damage not done by tornadic winds.

While Hauer-Schmitz directs the entire emergency management department, Rowan’s specialty is severe weather. A 15-year veteran, he began when the Internet was in its infancy and the availability of radar data was minimal due to its cost.

Despite all the technology and capability at his fingertips, he waits.

“It’s hurry up and wait,” he says. Eyes narrowing at the live radar feed, he mutters, “I don’t think it will do much, the storm seems to be falling apart.”

But by 3:31 p.m., a severe thunderstorm warning is issued for northern Rice County, along with a flash flood warning a few minutes later.

Conditions are ripe for flooding: The ground is saturated and an excess of rain is expected from the slow-moving storm. Storm drains can become overwhelmed and conditions can get dangerous quickly.

Now nearly overwhelmed with new data, Rowan begins issuing crisp orders into the banks of radios. He advises law enforcement of possible high winds and hail, consults maps and sends spotters to strategic points around the county. Residents watching TV are likely annoyed at the warnings breaking into their daily programming.

“People get angry, they call us and the cable companies get calls too,” Rowan says. “But those only go out if there is a threat. There is a substantial system in place keeping people aware, and nothing is done lightly.”

Then it hits.

Outside, torrential rains are falling, visibility plummets and the power begins flickering on and off, although backup generators hide that fact from Rowan and county officials who dip in and out of the war room.

Inside it’s silent, save for a few faint echoes of thunder.

“If the roof came off, we probably wouldn’t notice,” Rowan says with a chuckle.

By 4:03 p.m., the storm has passed, but widespread reports of street flooding are being radioed in. With the storm threat passed, Rowan relaxes a bit, but the flooding is a cause for concern.

“Let’s go take a look,” he says.

The times, they’ve changed

Herb Sellner is no stranger to storms. The lifelong Rice County resident has been weather spotting in some capacity for around 40 years.

“When I started going out and looking at storms we didn’t have any fancy radio equipment like we do now,” he said. “We had no type of communication whatsoever. We didn’t have any cell phones, no nothing.”

Instead, Sellner would make a map with the location of all the nearby pay phones. When he went out spotting, he’d bring a pocketful of quarters so when he observed severe weather conditions, he could head to the nearest pay phone to call the weather bureau, then in Rochester.

Sellner remembers one time — he thinks it was in 1976, although he isn’t completely sure anymore — that tornadoes hit Owatonna and Waseca, killing several people. Sellner was out spotting that day in Waseca County, and found himself in unfamiliar territory.

With no knowledge of where any pay phones were, there was nothing Sellner could do as the storms raged around him.

“It’s the most helpless feeling in the world,” he said.

Rowan has seen the changes even since he took over. When he started spotting in 1991, only one county in southeastern Minnesota, Waseca County, had radar. During severe weather then, people would have to turn to Channel 17 which, if they were lucky, displayed radar information.

But today, when Rice County weather spotter Eric Smestad heads out for severe weather, he’s armed with a Blackberry that he can use not only to call someone, but to pull up the latest radar readings. Another spotter, Brian Klier, has a truck equipped with a two-way radio and a laptop with mobile Internet that can provide him information on lightning strikes, the location of other spotters and the latest storm reports. Spotters routinely have instruments they can use to measure such critical items as wind speed and direction.

But even the advancements in technology can’t replace the basics: the ability of spotters on the ground to accurately report what they are — or aren’t — seeing.

At a recent Skywarn Spotter Training class in Lonsdale, something all potential Rice County spotters must take, Rowan and Hauer-Schmitz used a two-hour Powerpoint presentation to cover key elements of weather spotting: the parts of a thunderstorm, what to look for, the difference between a wall cloud and a shelf cloud and how to determine whether a formation is or isn’t a funnel cloud.

The untrained frequently have trouble identifying what they’re really seeing, leading to false reports of wall clouds, funnel clouds and tornadoes. Sometimes trained spotters even slip up.

Rowan offered important tips and analysis to the group. The key to knowing you’re looking at a funnel cloud, he said, is the visible and persistent rotation you’ll observe. He recalls looking at a recent NWS log and noting that someone from another county reported a “non-rotating funnel cloud.”

Rowan pointed out the absurdity of such an observation: A non-rotating funnel cloud is physically impossible.

“So, don’t embarrass the county,” he concluded. He appeared to be only half joking.

Clearing the scene

Officers responding to the call about the child in the water say Rowan “cleared the scene,” meaning he was one of the first of many first responders to arrive and secure the area.

The child is aware and alert, and is transported to the hospital. Rowan admits being that close to an emergency event isn’t usually part of his post-storm assessments, but given the circumstances, it’s all hands on deck.

Collaboration and communication is key, and Hauer-Schmitz and Rowan have devised a system that allows for maximum use of the county’s resources during severe weather events.

“If I’m out helping spot a storm, he’s [in the control room] dealing with it, and vice-versa,” Hauer-Schmitz says while giving a quick run-down of the county’s control center/war room. “Storms are probably going to hit at the worst times, and you can’t expect Mother Nature to play nice.”

Rowan spends the afternoon of July 15 assessing the flooding and trying to direct cars away from the flooded streets. While most are cleared of their water within 20 to 30 minutes, drivers still plunge through standing water, seemingly oblivious to the danger.

“It takes an inch of moving water to move a car,” he says, carefully looping his SUV around standing water on Division Street. “It’s incredibly dangerous, and it just takes one stalled car to muck up an entire street.”

Along Prairie Avenue, Rowan directs cars away from nearly two feet of standing water — forcefully.

“Sometimes you can’t be nice,” he says. “It’s for their own good.”

Storm damage is minimal besides the flooding, but if the storm had worsened, and tornadoes threatened, the county is prepared.

Each city with a siren system can trigger its own independently, and the control room in Faribault also has that ability. The sirens can even be triggered via radio.

While Rowan doesn’t consider himself superstitious — his focus is entirely on data and science — Hauer-Schmitz figures it can’t hurt.

“We haven’t had that [big] storm this summer yet,” she says, finding a wooden table to rap her knuckles on. “And I hope it stays that way.”

A night at the fair

On July 23, Rowan spends the day at the Rice County Fair in sweltering humidity. A thunderstorm rolls through the area in the morning and Rowan knows another one is likely on its way later in the day.

Sure enough, at 8:30 p.m. reports of a rapidly developing storm emerge, including a cell with a protruding hook echo, or storm spur that can spawn strong winds or tornadoes.

The storms are still well to the west — with dangerous-looking spots by North Mankato and Madelia — but headed toward Rice County. At 9:30 p.m. a flood advisory is issued for the county.

Rowan and nearly a dozen others — mostly sheriff’s deputies and emergency management staff — squeeze into a camper at the fairgrounds, huddling over tables and electronic equipment. Officers enter and leave the camper, and as the rain picks up, one enters soaked. Rowan is concerned.

“Do you need a paper towel or something?” he asks.

“Does it matter?” the woman replies with a chuckle.

Rowan is a whirlwind of energy, constantly fidgeting and wisecracking, all the while keeping track of the chatter and reports coming in and barking out directions. (“Wow, that is so 1980s,” he informs someone who walks in wearing a garish orange jacket. “Kind of like your glasses,” the officer responds, without missing a beat. But Rowan remains unruffled. “No, those are 1950s,” he says.) Later, others tease Rowan for his habit of watering down his lemonade.

Eventually Rowan throws open the camper door to see directly what’s going on outside, revealing a mass exodus of people retreating for the safety of their vehicles — and home. The grandstand has already been shut down and, with heavy lightning already in the area, Sheriff Troy Dunn advises the fair board that it should shut down the fair.

By 10:30 p.m., the storm has passed and Rowan has pulled in his spotters.

The fairgrounds feel like a ghost town. Despite some heavy rain, lightning and some unconfirmed reports of funnel clouds from other counties, not even a severe thunderstorm watch was issued for Rice County — just the flood advisory.

“Is it the right call?” Rowan asks in the aftermath. He shrugs. “It seems to be in this case.”

Rowan’s main concern that night is flooding from the heavy rain and all the people gathered in one place out in the open.

“For us the issue is the fair,” he says. “If you take the fair out of the equation, it’s just a garden variety storm.”

But that’s little solace to the officers ducking in and out of the camper, many of whom are having difficulty staying dry.

One enters wearing a bright yellow raincoat. Rowan looks over.

“Paper towel?” he asks.

The power of Mother Nature

During the Lonsdale training session, Rowan and Hauer-Schmitz showed two video clips that displayed, in the words of Hauer-Schmitz, “the power of Mother Nature.” In one clip, flooding sweeps away cars in a parking lot and leaves them piled atop each other like empty pop cans. The second clip shows a train derailing after it heads into the path of a tornado.

The point is clear: Storm spotting is a serious business.

Severe weather events can be unpredictable. Klier remembers one incident, in 2002, when he was eating lunch at a Green Mill restaurant near Medford. He walked out of the restaurant, got into his vehicle and looked behind him — and saw a tornado on the ground.

The key, spotters say, is to remain calm — a skill learned through time and experience — and concentrate on the task at hand.

“You’re focused on what you’re doing,” Sellner said. “We’re not stormchasers like in Hollywood. They don’t have a camera on us all the time to record everything we do for a TV series. We’re trained spotters and we go out and we do this to help the communities out.”

Severe weather events can also inflict almost unimaginable damage. Near the end of the training, Hauer-Schmitz and Rowan showed images of the aftermath of a 2007 tornado that devastated Greensburg, Kan. The EF5 tornado — the most powerful type, with winds more than 200 miles per hour — hit the town at 9:45 p.m. on May 4. The tornado was nearly two miles wide — bigger, Rowan pointed out, than the width of Lonsdale — and virtually removed the town from the map.

Of the 1,700 homes in the area, 961 were destroyed. Hundreds of others sustained significant damage. Eleven people died.

Images showed books still on their shelves and trophies still in a glass case in the midst of utter chaos. The town’s water tower was flattened. A metal bar pinned a jacket to a tree.

Hauer-Schmitz shook her head.

“How do you recover from something like that?” she asked.

No answer came. For now, she and Rowan have escaped ever having to deal with the question.

Knock on wood.

— Joseph Lindberg covers the city and county for the Daily News. He may be reached at 333-3135. News Editor Derek Wehrwein may be reached at 333-3131.

April 22, 2011

By Gordy Kosfeld, John Rowan, and Brian Klier

MP3 Link

July 3, 2010

With recent severe weather, the use and purpose of sirens is a popular topic of conversation.  John Rowan, Rice County deputy director of emergency management services, is the No. 1 resource for information regarding the noise that’s heard when blue summer skies turn green and violent.

Rowan took time to answer some questions for the Faribault Daily News about the sirens and the process of sounding them.

Q: What do the sirens mean?

They’re an outdoor warning system that tells you that you need to turn to local media, such as KDHL 920 AM radio or any TV station that transmits emergency weather information. Local media outlets will then tell you what to do.

Q: What emergencies are sirens used for?

• When tornadoes are spotted in the area.

• When there is extremely large hail.

• When winds are clocked at more than 65 mph.

All of these scenarios can be discovered on radar or spotted by severe weather spotter groups like Skywarn, or a city’s police sergeant. Skywarn has multiple volunteer groups scattered across Rice County. When it comes to tornadoes, the county looks for visual confirmation first but when night falls, radar is relied on.

Q: Where are sirens located?

From Faribault up to Lonsdale, sirens are located in nearly every town in Rice County to notify residents in case of an emergency. Every town except for Webster, as the town requested its siren be removed a couple years back. That’s why Morristown has two sirens.

The city of Faribault has nine sirens with each reaching 5,000 feet and virtually covering the entire city limits.

Q: Who turns the sirens on?

The National Weather Service can tell towns in Rice County to turn on its sirens for any of the severe weather reasons: Tornadoes, large hail and winds clocked at more than 65 mph.  Also, each town’s officer in charge, most times the sergeant, can request the sirens to be turned on for their area if they see weather that calls for an emergency.  Sirens will run for three minutes and there is not an “all-clear” siren to notify when the warning is over.

Q: From where can the sirens be turned on?

Not every town has the ability to push a button and turn on their own sirens — some need to make a phone call to one of the four places where the county’s sirens can be activated. The four locations are:

• The Rice County Dispatch Center located in Owatonna, where Steele and Rice County consolidated their dispatch centers more than a decade ago.

• The Rice County Emergency Management Services Office that resides in the Rice County Sheriff’s Office in Faribault.

• The Faribault Fire Department.

• The Northfield Safety Center.

Q: What about the use of Rice County-wide tornado warnings?

County-wide warnings ended in 2007.  Now warnings are given out in immediate areas affected by the severe weather — areas that can be as small as a fraction of a county or as wide as half a county.  The problem was that if we set off the sirens too early, the public didn’t see the immediate danger and they thought the threat was unfounded. But you don’t want to give people too little time to take cover, either.  Some people are still in the mindset that there’s county-wide warnings and those county-wide warnings desensitize people.

Q: What’s the best way to know about inclement weather now?

Sign up for text message updates online. Go to the City of Faribault’s website and register for Nixle so that the next time the sirens sound you get a text message that explains exactly what is going on.

— Shane Kitzman reports for the Faribault Daily News.

August 25, 2006

By Thomas E. Hammell

thammell@faribault.com

RICE COUNTY -- Storm clouds threatened Faribault on Thursday and dumped a significant amount of hail on Northfield.

Although the sun started shining Thursday afternoon in Northfield, the only thing it illuminated were hundreds of damaged cars and millions of dollars worth of damage after a hailstorm ripped through the city late Thursday morning.

"We haven't heard of any people being injured," said Captain Tim Halvorson of the Northfield Police Department.

"It's pretty much -- as far as I know -- property damage. Roofs, trees, cars, of course … it looks like a tornado went through," he said.

Hail the size of softballs was reported near St. Olaf College. And all over Northfield, vehicles with dented hoods and shattered windshields showed the force of Thursday's storm.

Although a tornado did not touch down in Northfield Thursday morning, Halvorson reported seeing a rotation of clouds west of St. Olaf.

Eleven squad cars from Northfield's police force were damaged. On Thursday, Northfield police were borrowing squad cars from the Rice County Sheriff's Office to make up for the downed vehicles.

Every vehicle belonging to Northfield's two car dealerships were damaged.

"Every car in the lot was damaged," said Doug Fitzgerald, sales manager at Dokmo Ford-Chrysler, 1201 S. Highway 3. "It looks like a war zone."

At Furlong Motors, also on South Highway 3, Office Manager Marilyn Falk reported significant vehicle damage, as well as damage to their building.

"We have lots of damage. Every vehicle was damaged and we had some building damage as well," Falk said.

Although Furlong is still waiting for their insurance adjuster, Falk estimated between $6 and $12 million in damage.

Storms beginning in the evening caused damage in Le Sueur County but largely missed Rice County.

The National Weather Service said a trained spotter reported a farmhouse destroyed three miles north of Elysian and major damage to the second floor of a home in Waterville, both in Le Sueur County, according to the Associated Press (AP).

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Northbound U.S. Highway 169 was closed between Mankato and St. Peter because of downed trees, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Minnesota Highway 99 from Nicollet to Mankato and state Highway 22 on the south edge of St. Peter also were closed, according to the AP.

Faribault Emergency Services Coordinator Mike Monge said a lot of streets were flooded around town but there was no major damage he was aware of.

"We've got some indication of trees down," he said, as well as reports of power lines down.

Rice County Sheriff Richard Cook said emergency management personnel started watching the skies at about 4:30 p.m. after hearing about storms in the Mankato area.

"EOC (Emergency Operations Center) was staffed at the time and we had spotters in the western part of the county, from Lonsdale all the way down to Morristown," Cook said.

The spotters kept an eye on two cells in particular.

"It looked like there was a lot of rotation between the two cells, a lot of activity as far as hail, rain," Cook said.

Cook said there was a report of a tornado touching down, as well as a debris cloud, but he hadn't heard of any damage associated with that. He also said a roof blew off a manufactured home in Faribault.

"The potential was there for a catastrophe but apparently the storms didn't continue at that magnitude and broke up in the travels through the eastern part of Le Sueur County," Cook said.

Cook asked for damage reports but hadn't heard of any damage, aside from some downed trees and some local flooding in the county.

"Daylight might give us a better idea of any further damage to crops or anything of that nature," he said.

As of 9 p.m., Rice County was still not out of the woods. Another storm system was reported in the Mankato area around that time.

"Whether it gets this far or not is questionable, but we're going to keep our eyes on it," Cook said.

-- Staff writers Emily Zimmer, Jeff Wald and Michelle Kubitz contributed to this story. The Associated Press contributed to this story. 

April 17, 2005

Unlike the early days of skywatching, John Rowan, Brian Klier and Adam Bjorklund have modern technology to help guide their observations.

The three are members of the Faribault/Rice County skywatch group.  The Lonsdale, Northfield and Morristown areas also have groups of volunteers ready to go into the field when a severe weather watch is issued by the National Weather Service.

Rice County's Emergency Management Department trains skywatchers, and when severe weather threatens Rowan acts as the observations coordinator.  He goes to the basement of the Rice County Law Enforcement Center and uses equipment that enables him to track the location of the skywatcher vehicles in the field, communicate with them verbally, and watch National Weather Service radar on computers.

Meanwhile, field observers like Klier and Bjorklund, with wireless, portable computer terminals in their vehicles, drive toward the inclement weather.  They watch the National Weather Service radar report on their computer screens to determine where the severe weather is headed and drive to that location to observe the clouds.

"Why you still need ground spotters, even with the sophisticated weather radar they have today, is that radar can only predict where a tornado might be forming," Klier said.  "Radar can't tell if there is a wall cloud, a funnel cloud, or a tornado on the ground.  That's why skywatchers are still very much needed when severe weather threatens."

Bjorklund demonstrated a portable wind meter, another tool used by field observers to report back wind speed, direction and barometric pressure.  This information is helpful in determining where severe weather is headed.

Skywatchers report their sightings to Rowan.  If a tornado, straight-line winds or other life-threatening severe weather is sighted, he reports the findings to appropriate emergency-management personnel, such as Mike Monge, Faribault's director of fire and code enforcement; Rice Rabeneck, Rice County's emergency management director; and emergency management supervisors in Lonsdale, Northfield and Morristown.

"Most of all of us are volunteers.  The equipment we carry in our cars we buy.  We do this because we enjoy watching the weather, and by doing so help warn people of the county so they can take shelter before a tornado or other severe weather hits," Rowan said.

The skywatchers are helped by deputies, other law officers and firefighters who also take the county-provided skywatch training each spring.  Even experienced skywatchers like Rowan, Klier and Bjorklund take refresher courses every two years.  Rowan has been a weather observer for 14 years; Klier since 1990, when he was in junior high school and his father piqued his interest; and Bjorklund for the past five years.

"We have footage of the 2000 tornado by Northfield that we use in our training," Rowan said.

In 1998, on March 29, the night of the famous St. Peter tornado, another tornado touched down in the northwestern part of Rice County, including the city of Lonsdale.

Klier also remembers the night of the Faribault Heritage Days parade that same year, when he was out watching some very "serious weather" headed toward Faribault from the west.  "They quickly canceled the end of the parade, but a lot of people got drenched with the heavy rains.  There was also strong winds and dime-sized hail in places.  It was quite the system."

All three warned when people hear the severe weather sirens go off, they should seek shelter and not go outside and look at the sky.

"In this county, sirens are only sounded when a tornado or straight-line winds are coming our way," Rowan said.  "People shouldn't be outside gazing at the sky.  They need to take shelter."

Tornadoes have occurred at all hours of the day, Klier said.  However, right before supper time is when more form than any other time of day.

"We do this because we really like weather and enjoy watching it develop," Klier said.  "But, we also do it because we're giving something back to the community, in a small way, by helping protect people."

When the severe sirens go off, Rowan said, "people can turn (on) their radios ... and listen to the weather advisory.  They should not call 911. Unfortunately, too often, when sirens sound, people call 911.  That ties up that emergency phone system.  Instead, listen to the radio, or more importantly, take shelter.  Go to the basement or into a room without windows.  Take weather warnings seriously.  The decision to sound sirens are not taken lightly.  There's a real weather threat when they go off."

-- Pauline Schreiber