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WADENA — The doll house image — with the walls blown out but the dishes neatly stacked on the exposed shelves — circled the globe in the aftermath of the Wadena tornado.
Cindy Wood, who was photographed outside what remained of her home on June 17, 2010, heard from people who saw the photo in Brazil, Austria, other parts of Europe, Puerto Rico and Afghanistan. Both sides of the home were missing. The south side was also was blown out to leave perfectly exposed rooms with views of white posted bed frames, a ceiling fan, a tub and shower. The family’s belongings were thrown to the wind or dumped in a mangled, sodden heap next to the house.
Wood believes it was God’s intervention that led her to clear out a basement area she used for her Avon business just days before the fateful storm. After all, she’d procrastinated on the effort. But now she felt a strong urge to get the job done. On the afternoon of June 17, 2010, Wood was busy at home.
Nearby, just across the highway from her home on Seventh Street Southwest, people were checking in at the Wadena-Deer Creek High School for the all-school reunion. Troubling weather led the city to cancel the parade planned that night. Wood’s youngest daughter, Jessica, then 13, was staying with a friend in Deer Creek and called asking to stay another day. Jessica later called to report a thunderstorm and a warning issued for a neighboring city. Jessica advised her mother to turn on the radio. She did. Wood heard the storm coming closer.
Wood’s elder daughter, Mariah, then 16, was a lifeguard and on duty at the Wadena Community Pool across the street. She grew up in the neighborhood with the pool just yards from her front door. She lived in the house on the corner since she was 5 years old. A close friend lived just around the block. Summers meant time at the pool.
With the changing weather, there were few people left at the pool that afternoon. That day, the weather couldn’t seem to make up its mind. It was sunny, then more ominous with peels of thunder, before becoming sunny once again. Mariah, a marching band member, got a text the parade was called off. When the lifeguards learned a tornado watch was in effect, they blew the whistles and emptied the pool. Parents arrived to pickup their children. Then the weather turned worse. The skies opened to pouring rain. Four lifeguards, a teenager and two young sisters remained as the storm approached.
Clouds were moving by quickly. The plan was to seek shelter in a small maintenance structure at the pool. The seven youngsters gathered in a small closet. But staying by the pool made Mariah uneasy. She told her mom she didn’t feel safe waiting there. After getting parental permission to take the young sisters across the street, the group made the dash to the Wood home and went to the basement. Even then, Mariah said they weren’t really worried about the storm.
“I thought we’d be fine and we’d just come out later,” she said.
They sat on chairs brought down from the dining room and talked while Cindy folded clothes in the nearby laundry room. The first sign of real trouble came with a dead phone line and lights that flickered and then went out. They hit the floor and heard the tornado’s signature rumble — as though a freight train was passing close by. Cindy said she prayed out-loud over and over again.
The house shook. Glass broke. Ears popped.
When it was over — sunlight and silence.
And, particularly, sunlight where it wasn’t supposed to be. The attached garage was gone. A banging sound on the house turned out to be an upstairs baseboard heater. When they came up the steps, Mariah said she was shocked.
“There was no house,” she said.
And the maintenance building where the group was supposed to shelter in a storm was gone. The pool building’s roof was in the pool. In the days that followed Mariah and her sister Jessica stayed with various friends for a couple days before moving on to another friend’s home.
“Everybody was just so good about taking the girls,” Cindy said. “I didn’t want to have them come back. They needed to be away from what just happened. That’s how I felt. Because it’s traumatic when you lose everything.”
For Mariah, the lost was all encompassing.
“She lost her stuff. She lost her job. She lost her school. She lost just everything,” Cindy said. “And she wasn’t doing well with that.”
Mariah left for summer camp for a week as a volunteer dishwasher and, because nothing was there for her at home, asked to stay on to work throughout the summer. This summer, she’s working camp as a lifeguard.
“I think if I wasn’t there at camp it would have been a lot worse because then I’d be around it all but then I still didn’t get a chance to get over it whereas everyone else was there and they were all over it by the time I got home,” Mariah said.
While she was gone, her house was demolished. She came back to an empty lot. It was an emotional moment. The family’s perfect corner by the park and school was gone.
“It’s hard, you go through so much,” Cindy said. Six weeks after the tornado, Cindy’s father died. “It was just a lot of stuff to have to deal with.”
In the aftermath, the Woods were able to move into a house that was for sale in the short term and then took another look at a home on the market they had actually looked at before.
“We had looked at this house several times before and we knew that we just couldn’t afford it,” Cindy said, noting they would have needed to sell their own house first, too.
The tornado changed that worry. The newly constructed house they looked at had been on the market for two years without a buyer. When they drove by in the past, Cindy told her husband maybe the house was waiting for them. That was before the tornado. Afterward, Cindy said a lot of people were scrounging for a place to live as houses for sale went to rent. She was glad her husband pushed to check out that house on Seventh Street Southeast again.
“I think we all believe it was a blessing from God,” Cindy said. “I do feel so blessed. I know that God was here. I know he saved all of us.”
She pointed to many blessings, including the fact that Mariah was supposed to be in McGregor that day and not at the Wadena pool where she was in a position to move everyone to safety. But Mariah said the lifeguard group at the pool that day last year all used their heads and were in it together.
Cindy said time has gone fast since the tornado. Like other residents, she is still dealing with insurance claims and issues. The sound of saws fill the air this June in southwest Wadena, just as they did a year ago.
But instead of chain saws cutting up downed trees — in a field of debris in neighborhood after neighborhood — the sound is now coming from circular saws for home repairs.
For Mariah the end of summer will mean another year making do for classes at Minnesota State and she thinks the leniency granted to the class of 2010 following the displacement may not be there for the new batch of seniors.
She misses her neighborhood friends. Her close friend from the block actually moved into the house that used to be next door. Now standing on their old street, they said it’s hard to remember what it looked like before. Through it all, the 17-year-old said she’s learned things about herself.
“I didn’t need the things I lost,” she said on a windy day on the empty ground where her house used to be. “I didn’t need to hold on to everything.”
When the sky changes and storm watches are posted, Mariah said the June 17, 2010, experience comes flooding back.
“It all comes back,” her mother said. “I don’t know if you ever get over that. It definitely changes you.”
RENEE RICHARDSON may be reached at renee.richardson@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5852.
