As the robot phone lady says when you dial a nonexistent number: De dee deeee! The preconception you have dialed -- "Tornados do not strike the inner city" -- is no longer available. Please make a note of it."
For years we've believed that tornados just don't do cities. So when the sirens went off, I figured someone had spotted tornadic-shaped cloud effluvia in Hudson, which triggers the end-of-the-world wail from the border to Minnetonka. But you can't ignore a siren.
So I did what we do: Turned the radio to 'CCO, because for Minnesotans, that is what the siren means. Turn on 'CCO. It's the law. It's in our genes. If there are Minnesotans on the moon in 2127, they will respond to a meteor shower by tuning something to 830.
In a perfect melding of all things 'CCO, Don Shelby was talking to R.J. Fritz; they needed only the echoey voice of Steve Cannon doing schtick From Beyond to complete the timeless 'CCO scenario. R.J. described a tornado-like squall downtown, which was initially reassuring: surely it would be stuck on Marquette due to road construction, and dissipate.
But there was more. The guilty thrill of a local disaster is the rush of Citizen Reports, telling you there are trees down in Hopkins, I repeat trees down in Hopkins. There is rotation in Anoka. Wall clouds! Wall clouds! Low ceiling! When you hear the storm is still intense, you have mixed emotions -- you want it to be done and gone before anyone's hurt, but bad weather is exciting if it's not happening to you.
As the reports gathered, however, it was clear it almost happened to me: 10 blocks north, across 35W, aka the Comfort Gulch. (What, some meth-heads burned down a house three blocks away? Well, it was the other side of the highway. Can't happen over here.)
Headed off to shoot video for the website as a fully-accredited ghoul. It's hard to ask picture permission from someone whose Hoover-era house is cradling a Coolidge-era elm, but people didn't mind.
I spoke to a young couple who'd been home when a tree the size of a Saturn rocket booster detached from its ancient foundation -- she was feeding their newborn when the storm swooped down, blew through the house with such force the air itself was an animate adversary.
They made it. The tree fell between the houses. They seemed almost flushed with gratitude. Baby was safe. You can always plant another tree, you know.
Up and down the hard-hit blocks, rueful smiles and black humor -- one fellow who'd had his shiny car creased into uselessness by a toppled trunk noted that he'd just bought four tires. Neighbors wandered up and down, taking pictures, swapping tales, yelling over the grinding whine of saws. A little more than an hour after the fist came down on Portland, and workers were already clawing the trees from lawns and streets.
Gives you the same feeling of pride you get when the plows roll past as the blizzard abates: none of that sitting-around-stunned-waiting-for-direction for us. Why, 90 minutes after the sirens sounded, a gent up the block had stripped off his shirt and was punishing a trunk with an axe. Slow, steady, rhythmic chops: you want some more? Here's another. You tell all your friends now. Don't try this again.
When I drove back from the office at twilight, Portland was blocked, traffic diverted off to the side streets. Everyone was out. Everyone had to look. It's always the prone trunk that draws the eye, the mad tangle of branches scrambled in the eaves.
People don't spend a lot of time looking at the roots of the giants that fell. We like to think they went deeper. We like to think it's not so easy. We prefer to think they can lean into the wind and take it. But along came the wind, and down they went. That's the only lesson you can take away from this, aside from the necessity of 'CCO and a house with a basement. A tree can take any wind. Except for the one that puts it down.
jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 More daily at www.startribune.com/buzz.
