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Marie Porter
Photography by Michael Porter
Twisted: A Minneapolis Tornado Memoir
Copyright ©2012 by Marie Porter. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews.
First Edition, May 22, 2012
Published in eBook format by Celebration Generation
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-0-9846-0408-1
Celebration Generation
P.O. Box 41844
Plymouth, MN USA
55441
Acknowledgments
There are so many people that we need to thank...I'm dreading the idea that I could possibly forget someone!
First off, I would like to thank my best friend, my husband Porter. I have no idea how I would have gotten through this without him, in so many ways. From emotional support through the ordeal, to him being so skilled with the rebuild, to his undying support for this book - he was amazing.
Thank you SO very much to friends - new and old - who volunteered many hours of hard labor to help dig us out from this mess: Peter Gamache, Tara Q, Jessica McMillan, Jennifer Fairchild, Todd Murray, Carrie Iwan, Otha Lohse, Jeanne & John Rubbo, Heather & Mark Sauntry, David Waldorf, the Smith family, Tom, and anyone I may have forgotten. (Forgive me, it was a high stress time!). Aside from the desperately needed physical help, you guys really helped keep us sane. We hope to be able to repay the favors some day!
Thank you, so very much, to everyone who generously donated towards our repairs. With such a huge gulf between what insurance would cover, and the actual damages... you guys were amazing. We are so touched by the generosity not only from friends, but from complete strangers. Thank you, Anime Twin Cities, Mark &Heather Sauntry, Barb Andersen, Karen Cyson, Jeanne & John Rubbo, Jason Wynia, Barbara Ploegstra Hunt, Carrie Iwan , David Medinets, Helen Shin, Sheila Smith, Brent Black, Christopher MacAllister, Shawn Colton, Jason Glaser, Charlene Russell, Dave Benhart, Charlotte Nickerson, Shawn Bakken, Amy Rea, Tom Hogan, Ray Porter, Sarah Elizabeth, Alicia LaMunion and various employees at Boston Scientific - Maple Grove.
Thank you to everyone who bought my cook books as a result of the tornado, and spread the word. We're not used to accepting charity, so it was nice to have some help in earning our way out of this mess. I hope you loved the books!
Thank you so much to Tracy of Iron River Construction. You walked in to SUCH a mess- both literally and figuratively - and took such great care of us. Also, big thanks to Jim Leighton for the recommendation!
Thank you to the geek communities - both local and otherwise - as well as to friends and followers on social media. Thank you for putting up with me through this whole roller coaster, for help finding contacts, resources, referrals, & information, and for your continued support.
HUGE thanks to the people behind the North Minneapolis Post Tornado Watch page. "Rock stars" doesn't even begin to describe you guys. Your tireless work to make sure that those of us affected by the tornado were kept up to date on resources and information was awe inspiring. Peter Kerre, Mandi Studler, Genesia Williams, Shane Williams, and Anthony Newby - you guys are awesome.
Thank you FEMA, for your quick response to the tornado, and honestly trying to help us. While we may not have qualified for individual assistance, I want you to know that some of us appreciate your efforts, and your obviously caring & concerned employees on the ground here. It's nice to know that part of the government was looking out for us, even when our local government was NOT.
Finally, I should - grudgingly - thank the City of Minneapolis. If it weren't for their blazing incompetence - making everything FAR more stressful and convoluted than it ever needed to be - I wouldn't have been fired up enough to write this book. On the same note, I suppose thanks is also due to opportunistic vultures and poorly behaved contractors. You all made this such an ... interesting... experience
Preface
I'll never forget my first real exposure to life in a tornado zone.
I'd moved to Minnesota a few months before, in the middle of February. Having been born and raised in Canada, there was so much that was new to me... and so much that no one had bothered to tell me.
I was gassing up my car in Maple Grove, on a sunny and warm spring day in 2006, when the air raid sirens went off. I had absolutely NO idea what one was supposed to do in the event of an act of war, and freaked out.
While frantically dialing my husband at work and ducking, I tried to remember what I'd seen in those old movie clips. History class, about wars that had happened many decades before, kids in school - what did they do? Was that "duck and cover"? I know it's not "stop, drop, and roll" - we'd learned THAT one! Was I supposed to get under my car? Who paid attention to what they did in air raid drills in these old movies? It was Canada, and I'd never lived anywhere where that would be a real consideration.
I'd never been so scared in my life. It's one thing for something like this to happen... but to be completely unprepared and left floundering? THAT is what scared me more than anything. I'd had no cultural exposure to this, and I was missing any "air raid drill" training that kids that grew up here probably were receiving.
My husband picked up the phone, and I was so glad he was around to do so, as he worked in a huge building in the area - for all I know, it could be a target for this apparent air raid.
I'm sure I sounded like a madwoman, asking what the HELL I'm supposed to do when air raid sirens go off.
He laughed. Hard.
As he explained that those sirens weren't for air raids, they were for weather, I finally noticed that no one else was scared, they all milled about their business on this sunny afternoon. Not only was the siren NOT about an act of war, it was a regular, scheduled thing. This was the first Wednesday of the month, it was 1:00pm, of COURSE there was supposed to be a siren going off. Of course.
Of course, that would have been nice to know ahead of time! I'd never lived anywhere that had any sort of weather that required sirens to announce it, and I'd only ever heard of that sort of siren in the context of old war movies.
While my husband thought he was giving me good news - allaying my shock that I apparently lived in a place that had to be concerned about air raids - he was actually giving me terrifying news. Oh shit, I'd moved somewhere where tornadoes are frequent enough, they have sirens set up to warn about them.
I had never considered tornadoes as a concern, moving to Minnesota. Had he lived in Oklahoma or Kansas, he would have had a much harder time getting me to move. I may never have been exposed to tornadoes, but they scared the shit out of me - in theory. I'd handled floods. I'd handled never ending blizzards, and 5-6 yards of snow over the course of a week or two - snow drifts higher than the houses. I'd walked down Bourbon street during a tropical storm, not that long before Katrina.
Tornadoes,