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59 years ago, Friday May 7th 1965, Fridley Mn tornadoes.
I was 17 years old and obviously survived the storms but members of my high school athletic teams were literally called on to help go through the rubble looking for those who might not have, many of whom would have been our classmates.
I still have dreams about those days, I woke up this morning to one, it happens almost every year.
On the night of May 6, 1965, two F4 tornadoes cut through the northwest Twin Cities metro area. Known collectively as the Fridley tornado, these twisters were the worst cyclonic disaster to hit the Twin Cities to date.
On the evening of May 6, 1965, Twin Cities residents knew that there was going to be a storm. They just didn’t know how devastating it would turn out to be. When Fridley residents saw the sky turning dark green and spotted baseball-sized hail raining down around 7:00 pm, they called their kids inside. Eyewitness accounts describe the air smelling of sulfur. Many who were children at the time later remembered putting large pieces of hail in their refrigerators.
At 7:06 pm, the first tornado touched down in southwestern Fridley. Over the next fifteen minutes, it cut a 6.8-mile path to the northeast and dissipated in Blaine. This tornado was an F4 classification—the second-most powerful category of storm on the Fujita scale. The most common shared experience that people later remembered was hearing the deafening, train-like noise that accompanied the tornadoes.
By the end of the storm, there were three fatalities and 175 injuries. People emerged from their destroyed homes and helped others who were trapped in rubble or injured. However, they did not have much time to do so before a second tornado appeared.
This second tornado touched down in Golden Valley at 8:14 pm. It travelled for 17.3 miles from there through Fridley and Mounds View before dissipating west of Centerville at 9:02 pm. The second tornado was also an F4 storm; this time, there were six fatalities and 158 injuries. Although many homes were mostly destroyed, that night people gathered together with their neighbors and slept in basements and cars that were still intact.
On the evening of May 6, 1965, Twin Cities residents knew that there was going to be a storm. They just didn’t know how devastating it would turn out to be. When Fridley residents saw the sky turning dark green and spotted baseball-sized hail raining down around 7:00 pm, they called their kids inside. Eyewitness accounts describe the air smelling of sulfur. Many who were children at the time later remembered putting large pieces of hail in their refrigerators.
At 7:06 pm, the first tornado touched down in southwestern Fridley. Over the next fifteen minutes, it cut a 6.8-mile path to the northeast and dissipated in Blaine. This tornado was an F4 classification—the second-most powerful category of storm on the Fujita scale. The most common shared experience that people later remembered was hearing the deafening, train-like noise that accompanied the tornadoes.
By the end of the storm, there were three fatalities and 175 injuries. People emerged from their destroyed homes and helped others who were trapped in rubble or injured. However, they did not have much time to do so before a second tornado appeared.
This second tornado touched down in Golden Valley at 8:14 pm. It travelled for 17.3 miles from there through Fridley and Mounds View before dissipating west of Centerville at 9:02 pm. The second tornado was also an F4 storm; this time, there were six fatalities and 158 injuries. Although many homes were mostly destroyed, that night people gathered together with their neighbors and slept in basements and cars that were still intact.
https://www.mnopedia.org/event/fridley-tornado-1965