67 tornadoes in 8 hours !

[Aquawind]

Night of fright, destruction left S.D. with vivid reminders
Melanie Brandert
mbrander@argusleader.com

published: 6/24/2004

Joe and Kris Eldredge looked out their window when the heavy rain and high winds stopped.

It turned eerily quiet.

But a yellow-green sky warned of coming storms and tornadoes.

They decided to head to the basement of their home near Wall Lake at 10:30 p.m.

The couple's older children, Ryan, and Danielle, now 13 and 10, already were in the basement. Kris Eldredge grabbed Trevour, now 7, and headed there when the house began moving off its foundation. Her husband did not make it downstairs.

All five emerged. Joe had a separated shoulder and a chunk of his finger cut off. Kris had bruised ribs.

"It was raining like needles.

We just grabbed hands and took off across the field toward my brother's," said Kris Eldredge, who spent the night at Sioux Valley Hospital. "The garage was on top of the house. The house was halfway in the back yard. It was a mess."

After living at a motel and renting a house owned by her brother, they moved into a new ranch house last fall.

The Eldredges are among several South Dakota families whose homes were ravaged by tornadoes that pummeled the eastern part of the state one year ago today.

Sixty-seven tornadoes formed within an eight-hour period, tying a U.S. record.

Within minutes, ferocious winds forced young and old to rebuild their lives. Some returned to the same places they had lived before with a new or renovated home. Some found a new home in a nearby town. Some left South Dakota to be closer to family elsewhere.

While the record-breaking twisters threw the lives of families, business owners and local officials into upheaval, the aftermath proved their unwavering spirit.

A community's generosity and assistance, and the perseverance of families, put lives back together.

Manchester devastated

Perhaps none felt more displaced than those who lived in the Manchester area. Nestled along Highway 14 between Iroquois and De Smet, the town of six residents lingered on the brink of becoming a ghost town before that harrowing night. Then, an F-4 tornado barreled its way through town with winds of 207 to 260 mph.

Rex Geyer had come home from work in De Smet at 6 p.m. that Tuesday. He and his wife, Lynette, who was eight months pregnant, looked forward to relaxing on the couch in their farm house 1O miles north of Manchester.

They had been monitoring severe weather near Woonsocket, where Lynette's relatives live. The soon-to-be parents were ready to sit down for dinner when it began to rain. Then their nephew called, saying he thought he spotted a tornado a mile south of Manchester.

Geyer could see only a low, dark, churning cloud in the distance. Then his brother, Dan, stormed through the front door and hollered they had to get to the basement. His modular home had no cellar. So he, his wife, Linda, and their two children sought shelter there.

He joined the couple upstairs as they tracked the slow-moving tornado to determine which direction it was headed.

"All of a sudden, we started to see debris from Manchester - boards, branches flying in the air," Rex Geyer said.

Now in the kitchen, the trio made a decision. Geyer had doubted all six would be safe in the basement, so Dan suggested they leave. They piled into his car in the pouring rain, headed north three miles, then west two or three miles to get out of the twister's path.

"My brother could hardly see to get out of the driveway. He almost drove off once," Rex Geyer said.

When they reached Highway 14, they discovered a throng of storm chasers and media taking pictures of the tornado heading northeast away from town. As they neared Manchester, they began to spot the damage.

"As you would get close to Manchester, there was nothing left - no houses, no trees. Nothing left but rubble," Geyer said.

They drove past Dan and Linda Geyer's home, which lost skirting but was still standing.

When the six neared Rex and Lynette's farm, Rex could see nothing was left. The house, garage, two storage sheds and three grain bins were destroyed.

The rear wheels of his pickup sat on the hood of their car, which was lodged against a tree stump. All the work they spent on furnishing a nursery for their babies was rubble. A fence near the house was ripped out of the ground and wrapped around a tree.

"The house and buildings were all tangled together," Geyer said. "It was like someone dropped a bomb."

He managed to grab a file of important papers and a pair of jeans before Sheriff Charles Smith urged people to seek shelter because more twisters had been spotted. Geyer and two of his brothers' families spent the night at their mother's.

Rex and Lynette Geyer lost precious family heirlooms, including a cradle where Lynette's father, siblings and their children had slept as babies. They had brought it home the weekend before.

"My father-in-law wanted to make sure our twins used this cradle - keep the tradition alive," he said.

Rex and Lynette welcomed twin daughters, Hayley and Heather, into the world on July 19.

After staying at his mother's, the Geyers moved on Labor Day into a rented home owned by his brother, Dan, two miles southeast of town. Rex Geyer bought a parcel of land in Manchester, where a damaged aluminum-siding shed and old feed store stood. He repaired the shed to store items.

Geyer also bought Harold Yost's property last fall a half-mile north of their old home. The family plans to build a new home there.

Leaving the house that night probably saved his family, Geyer said, though experts don't recommend trying to outrun tornadoes.

Two 500-gallon fuel barrels north of his house had crashed into the basement, where he and his wife would have gone to seek shelter if his brother's family had not arrived.

"There would have been no way we would have made it in there," he said. "The fuel barrels would have probably crushed us. One was full."

'Our place was gone'

Geyer's former neighbors, Harold and Loretta Yost, were enjoying a visit from their daughter, Elizabeth Janz, and her children, Zachary, then 5; Jacob, then 4; and four-month-old Abigail, all of Scotia, Neb., at their farm two miles north of Manchester.

Loretta Yost said Tuesday was a hot, sultry day. Her grandsons went swimming. The family piled into two cars to head over to the home of her cousin, Elizabeth Unruh, and her husband, Mike.

They first learned of severe weather at Fort Thompson when they walked in. Later, they stood outside watching a tornado in the distance and insulation began to rain down on them.

As the relatives wondered where the twister hit, the Unruhs' neighbor, Bill Fox, stopped at the farm to tell them a storm hit Manchester. Shortly before Harold, Ace and Mike Unruh left for the Yost farm, Loretta received the bad news about their farm from nephew Rodney Yost.

"Our place was gone," she said. "I was numb for two months. You couldn't think. You just soberly left the yard."

Family members had been worried because they could not find them in the rubble, Yost added.

The next day, Loretta Yost returned to her home after spending the night to find the shop, two-story white and brown house and grain bins destroyed with metal wrapped around a tree.

"A friend had one of their pickups sitting there," she said. "It blew up in a tree."

But her father's 1963 Falcon was intact. The barn had collapsed on top of it, somewhat protecting it from the elements.

"An angel just came and led us out," Loretta Yost said, "because they said we wouldn't have survived in our basement."

Turner County ravaged

Although the Manchester tornado was the strongest recorded that night, 11 twisters menaced Turner County. They damaged the fairgrounds and Heritage Park in Parker, as well as homes, acreages and farms near Centerville, Davis, Parker and Viborg.

In Manchester, the only homes standing are two that were vacant before the tornado hit.

Beyond the DM&E Railroad tracks on the road leading to town, the battered Manchester sign still stands. A few large piles of rubble lay scattered around town where houses once stood.

While many trees remain stripped of vegetation, others that were stunted managed to produce leaves.

Harold Yost drives past Manchester as little as possible.

"I don't like to see it," he said.

[whiteoutwx1796]

amazing story with an amazing outcome.