Peterson
(Chad, Sue, and Family)
August
26th, 2007 Tornado
Just like many of our fellow Northwood residents,
Sunday August 26th for Chad and Sue Peterson (and sons Jace and
Erik), started with church. Our service
at Ebenezer Free Lutheran Church was just about to end when we learned about
the passing of Pastor Bill Fretwell from Northwood Community Bible Church. The news left us in shock and set the tone
for what was to become a day we will never forget.
We spent much of the day, Sunday, working on the
yard. It was so hot and miserable outside
and knew it felt like it could storm.
As it got closer to 8:00 PM, we started seeing
weather warnings flash on the television.
We were watching Extreme Makeover -
Home Edition (ironic) and were getting things ready for the first day of the
school year for Jace and Erik. Jace was
an 8th grader and Erik was entering 3rd grade.
The weather updates kept breaking into the program
on TV. It seemed that a particularly
strong storm cell that was currently near McVille was heading our way. Sue and I decided that we should go up to
Northwood Deaconess Health Center (NDHC) to help staff get residents and
patients into the hallways for safety should there be bad weather. Sue and Chad both worked at NDHC. Sue as a nurse, and Chad was the Human
Resources and Technology Manager - as well as the Emergency Management coordinator
at the time.
We decided to take the boys with us, and left our
dog Abby in her kennel in Chad’s office.
We had a little bit of a discussion about which vehicle to take. We were a little worried about hail damage
and didn’t want anything to happen to the cars if we could help it.
When we arrived at NDHC we quickly started getting
folks out into the hallways. Some had
already gone to bed, so staff got them up and into chairs. We ensured the Dakota Apartment residents had
also been notified and asked them to come down to the hallway in the East Wing
of the Nursing Home (where the snackbar used to be). The hospital had taken steps to ensure the
safety of their patients, as well.
At about 8:35 PM, we had everyone in as safe of a
position as we could have, and so we waited.
Chad turned the TV in the Sunshine Parlor of the Nursing Home so that it
could be viewed from his position in the hallway. Erik was near Chad huddled under a
wheelchair. Jace was in Chad’s office
monitoring the radar on the Internet and trying to listen to the radio to hear
weather updates. Sue was with the other
charge nurses walking up and down the hallways making sure everyone was ready,
giving them additional blankets to cover with to protect themselves from glass
and other debris, should it get bad outside.
Somehow we found out that a funnel cloud had been
spotted just SW of the airport and was heading our way. We could hear the emergency siren
outside. The cable television went out,
followed shortly by the power. As the
generators kicked in and the alarms started sounding at NDHC, the doors to the
Sunshine Parlor on the south side of the nursing home were sucked open. Chad ran out to try to close them, but
quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen.
As he ran back to the hallway, he used his body to shield the resident
closest to the doorway and yelled for everyone to cover their heads. As the tornado passed over, the ceiling tiles
in the hallway at NDHC lifted up and down like an accordion. We could hear glass breaking everywhere, even
over the roar of the wind. Unknown to
Chad at the time, moments before the storm hit NDHC, Sue had realized Jace was
still in Chad’s office and ran to get him.
While they ran up the hallway from Chad’s office toward the Nursing
Home, they saw the ceiling tiles moving up and down and felt the dust and
debris in the air. They ran around the
corner and pulled two other nurses into a hall linen closet with them, where they
huddled and prayed while the storm passed over.
Erik was protected by his angel – the woman in the wheel chair near Chad
who covered him with a blanket and make sure he stayed safe.
After what seemed like many minutes (but we know
didn’t take more than 2-3), we started evaluating the chaos. The alarms were still going off. Some of the younger staff were crying out of
fear, others were dazed. As we soon
discovered, everyone at NDHC was OK, although we definitely had a lot of
damage.
While Sue stayed at the Nursing Home side of the
building to help staff there take care of the residents, Chad began an initial damage
assessment of the building. Although we
had lost part of the roof in the North Wing of the Nursing Home and had windows
broken out everywhere, NDHC seemed to still be intact. The ambulances were safely in the garage, but
the front entrance doors to the hospital were broken and hanging off. We still had no idea of the extent of the
damage, but wanted to make sure we could get out with the ambulances and also
be accessible to anyone who walked in with injuries.
Chad began to try to establish radio contact with
the Fire Department and Police. No
response. We began to prepare for
emergency treatment at the hospital and started setting up the second ER, just
in case we needed it. Still no response
from anyone on the radio. Finally,
someone made their way on foot to the hospital and told us that the Fire
Department was gone. They described the
damage they had seen as they had made their way to the hospital. We still hadn’t seen anything outside of our
building, but now realized this was very big and that our lives had just been
changed forever. This was the darkest
moment of the night for Chad, when he started thinking that outside of this
building, all may have been lost.
As the only place in town with power, NDHC became a
gathering point for the folks in town.
One by one, or in small groups, people made their way up there. Some came to help us, putting plywood over
broken windows or vacuuming up rain water which had begun to inundate the North
Wing and Nurses Station at the Nursing Home because of the lack of a roof in
that area. Others came just to be safe
and have a place to cry and find friends to hug.
Finally, Chad was able to talk to the Grand Forks
EOC on the radio and they began relaying to him what was going on. A Command Post/Staging Area was being set up
at Northwood Oil, search and rescue was on-going. Chad was told to prepare for multiple
casualties, which he then relayed on to the nursing staff, who had already
begun recalling staff. Some had already
started to arrive, long before any calls for assistance. It’s just what they do.
As the night wore on, information continued to trickle
in. The search and rescue
continued. Fire Departments and Law
Enforcement agencies from all over had come to help. Injured people were either treated at NDHC or
by one of the many EMT units that had come from other communities. Trees that were blocking access to and from
NDHC were being cleared so that we could get our ambulances out and folks could
get to us. Grand Forks Air Force Base
called and asked how many generators we wanted and where I wanted them. They brought a flatbed trailer to the
hospital parking lot and began staging light units and generators around our
entrance and in key areas around town.
Meanwhile, our adult kids came home. Nicholas was living in Brookings, SD. I remember talking to him at what seemed
fairly shortly after the tornado had hit. Then it seemed he was suddenly there. Austin was living in Grand Forks. He and his fiancée (Jeramie), along with her
parents were also there to help. While
Sue and I stayed at work, they made their way around and over trees and
powerlines – and lots of standing water – to get to our house at 308 S. Hougen
Street. They got Abby out of the house
(a wall had partially collapsed on her kennel, but she was OK), and they
boarded up our broken windows best as they could. Ralph and Denise Miller (Jeramie’s parents)
then took Abby, Jace, and Erik to their house and to safety. Nicholas, Austin, and Jeramie were determined
to stay in Northwood so they could help us.
Sue told them they should try to get some sleep and that if our house
wasn’t suitable for sleeping in, they could maybe go sleep on the couches in
the Narthex at Ebenezer…we still didn’t know what the damage really was. They ended up pulling a mattress off a
hide-a-bed and slept on the floor of a basement store room in our house, where
there hadn’t been any glass or other debris blown onto the floor. We don’t really know how we could have
recovered from this if it wasn’t for their help in the days and weeks
ahead. God has blessed us with amazing
children.
Throughout the night, Sue continued to work at the
Nursing Home, helping to care for and move residents into safe rooms and get
them settled in for the night, while Chad continued to work mainly in the
hospital setting up command and control with CEO Pete Antonson. They were in communication with the State
Health Department with an emergency video conference system. The Health Department was in communication
with all the other hospitals and Public Health Agencies and worked tireless on
behalf of the residents of Northwood, as well.
The night seemed to last forever. National Radio and TV networks called for
updates/interviews throughout the night.
Chad’s response on many of these interviews was that the real level of
destruction would be revealed once daylight came.
At about 7:00 AM on Monday morning, Chad and Sue
held hands and began the walk to our house, not at all sure what we would find
– or what level of devastation we would see.
We hadn’t been out of the NDHC building at all, yet, and had been
working all night. Our first stop was
our van that we had parked on the south side of the Nursing Home. Chad had left his wedding band in there and
wanted to retrieve it. The van was
totaled, but the ring was right where he had left it. It seemed like it took a very long time to
get to our house, even though it was only about three blocks away. Trees and debris were laying everywhere. Our garage was gone, and although our house
was still standing, there was a tremendous amount of damage. Rafters from someone’s roof were in our
basement. Glass from our windows was
embedded in our walls. There were cracks
everywhere. It was clear we were very
lucky that we weren’t there when the storm hit.
Remember the car we wanted to keep safe from hail? Lost, as well.
Ralph and Denise Miller opened up their home (near
Grand Forks) to us. We stayed there
until Labor Day weekend, when we moved temporarily to the Klevberg farm east of
Northwood (thank you again, Klevberg’s!!).
Erik stayed with Chad’s cousin and her husband/family in Thompson during
that first week of chaos. We were very
thankful to have him somewhere safe and carry on a semi-normal routine while we
tried to recover on multiple fronts. We
were reunited with Erik the next Sunday morning – the morning we came together
as a community to worship in a tent next to Northwood Community Bible Church.
Our house was declared a total loss by our insurance
company. Instead of building a new home,
we bought the home of Gary and Dawn Lawrence (formerly the C.P. and Helen
Austinson home), which was just southwest of our place. We moved in after repairs there had been
completed, in early November.
Austin and Jeramie were to be married at Ebenezer in
October, 2007. Their wedding was moved
to Trinity Free Lutheran Church in Grand Forks.
It was a wonderful ceremony and for us was a terrific celebration of not
only this newly married couple, but also for all those that had helped us with our
recovery so far.
It would be impossible to tell our tornado tale
without mentioning some of the other things we were involved in after the
tornado. Chad was the Congregational
President at Ebenezer at the time and spent countless hours in meetings (and
prayer) as we made decisions ultimately resulting in the construction of a new
church building on the site of the former Northwood Public School. Chad was also on the Park Board, and worked
with FEMA and other agencies to return the park back into shape after the pool
house and grandstand were destroyed.
We remember the countless examples of other people
and communities showing kindness to our community and fellow citizens. The red carpet that the Hatton School and
community rolled out for our kids the next two school years was much
appreciated. We will never forget the
very emotional first day of school in Hatton when our Northwood kids were given
a VIP welcome. Thank you, Hatton!
NELC opened its doors to Ebenezer while the new
church was being built. Thank you, NELC!
There are many, many, others who have been (or
should be) thanked for what they did on a personal level or through their
organizations, to help us (and Northwood) recover.
As Northwood continued to recover, Chad and Sue
volunteered to be the co-chairmen for the Northwood 125+1 Celebration, held in
2010, and helped to organize (along with a terrific team of people) a wonderful
week of celebrating not only the past, but also the bright future of the
community.
We have learned a lot - about ourselves and about Northwood
– because of the tornado and the aftermath of its affects. We have a much stronger feeling of empathy
for all who are dealing with natural and personal disasters in their lives. One final lesson we learned was that faith,
family and community are really all that is important, once everything else is
stripped away.
We thank you, Northwood, for being a wonderful
community to us.
