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Disasters

Catharine Richert

Author

Twenty years ago, a supercell thunderstorm spawned more than a dozen tornadoes that ripped through south central Minnesota. As St. Peter residents remember the weather event that forever changed their town, they say the tornado brought the city and college together.

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March 29, 1988: MPR Reporter Lynetter Nyman reports from St. Peter on the tornado.

Archive: St. Peter tornado

Sarah (Jellif) Davis, then a Gustavus student, pauses in the rubble.

Mankato Free Press 1998

Family members search for the family cat shortly after a tornado.

A March 30, 1998 aerial view of Comfrey, Minn.

Gustavus Adolphus students walk to and from class near Christ Chapel.

Jackson Forderer for MPR News

City administrator Todd Prafke was only four months into his position.

One of the few known photographs of the tornado, at the Historical Society.

The St. Peter Arts and Heritage Center after a tornado, on March 30, 1998.

Jim Mone | AP file 1998

Workers remove broken glass in a Gustavus Adolphus residence hall.

The Old Main building on the Gustavus Adolphus campus was heavily damaged.

Prafke points out the downtown area on a map of the path of the tornado.

Tornado devastated St. Peter, but healed town-gown relationship

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