Out of the Blue
By Norma Dittman
Murray County News staff writer
Author Scott Thoma was at this year’s Murray County Fair to talk about his book Out of the Blue, which is an accounting about the F5 tornado that destroyed much of the city of Tracy in 1968.
Thoma shared facts about the tornado stating that it was one of two F5 tornados registered in the state of Minnesota. A nine-year old boy when the tornado hit Tracy, he vividly recalls the destruction that he saw once the tornado had passed through the town.
“Officially, the Tracy tornado is one of two registered F5 tornados in Minnesota. It used to be that they measured the tornadoes by wind speed and F5’s were measured at 261-318 miles per hour,” Thoma said. “Ironically, I am speaking to you about the Tracy tornado upon the 25th anniversary year of the Chandler tornado. That tornado was measured at 260 miles per hour. The Tracy tornado was measured at 309 miles per hour.”
Thoma continued by saying that some of the way they can tell how hard the wind is blowing in a tornado is by the heavy objects that it moves. During the Tracy tornado 2,500 pound box cars were blown several blocks in the air. “Another way they tell is how far the tornado drives stuff into the ground,” Thoma said. “The Tracy tornado was on the ground for about 25 minutes.”
“The day that the Tracy tornado hit, the sky was a beautiful blue and it was 100 degress,” Thoma commented. “There was a big supercell coming from Sioux Falls. The sky was so blue that people could see the tornado 25 miles away.” He talked about how people near Lake Shetek were out fishing and enjoying the great outdoors, but never thought to call ahead to the town of Tracy to warn them about the Tornado. He said it was a critical care nurse from near Garvin, along with her farmer husband, who alerted the town about the tornado about 8 to 10 minutes before it struck.
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