Weather News

HUGO, Minn. (AP) ― The neighbor's house was gone, much of it blown into a pond, with two adults trapped in the debris. Marvin Miller moved in closer to help.

"They just kept screaming, 'My children, my children!' Miller said on Monday, one day after a tornado whipped through this St. Paul suburb and killed 2-year-old Nathaniel Prindle. That boy's parents were the ones Miller found.

His mother's face was cut up, the father had broken bones, said Miller and another neighbor who rushed in to help, Troy Ashton.

The family's 4-year-old daughter was found quickly, under parts of a shattered wall. She wasn't breathing. Ashton, 38, did CPR on her until he was relieved by a police officer. Speaking quietly in an elementary school cafeteria filled with survivors, he said he didn't think the little girl would make it. Emergency workers revived her twice on the way to the hospital but she was still alive and in critical condition on Monday. She is only a year younger than Ashton's 5-year-old daughter.

They still had to find the boy. Someone stood in the home's wreckage and looked at the direction the debris was blown out into the pond, and used that to guess which way to go.

"It was a big swamp and there was debris everywhere," Ashton said. He waded in and found the boy in chest-deep water. He handed him over to Miller, who did CPR on a broken piece of wall to keep the child above the water. Nathaniel died anyway.

He knew while he was breathing for the boy that there wasn't much hope. "But I didn't want to give up," said Miller, 42, and a father of four.

The children's parents also were hospitalized. The Washington County sheriff's office identified the family Monday and said Nathaniel's father, Gerard Prindle, was in stable condition at Regions Hospital in St. Paul. The mother, Christy Prindle, was treated there and released. The daughter, Annika, was at Gillette Children's hospital in Minneapolis in critical condition, according to a hospital spokesman.

The Prindle family released a statement.

"We would like to thank our incredible neighbors and the Hugo and White Bear Lake Emergency Personnel for all they did. They responded within minutes of the tornado hitting and pulled us out from the wreckage. They also provided blankets, towels, comfort, and performed CPR on our daughter. Everyone involved demonstrated such kindness and compassion. We are asking now for prayers for Annika and Jerry as they recover," wrote Christina Prindle.

Washington County Sheriff Bill Hutton said 40 to 50 homes were left uninhabitable, and another 150 to 200 were damaged to some degree. The worst-hit area was quickly closed off, but residents were to be allowed to return from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. to retrieve personal items and inspect the damage. Some homes, red-tagged by inspectors, were to remain off-limits because of safety concerns.

Residents who were waiting to get a look at their homes picked up bottled water and met with insurance adjusters on Monday at Oneka Elementary school, which just opened in the fall of 2006 in this fast-growing suburb.

"It's horrible," said City Administrator Mike Ericson. "The citizens are very shook and scared."

Gov. Tim Pawlenty and other elected officials toured the damaged area Monday. "Each pile of rubble represents somebody's life that has been destroyed or upended in a horrific way," Pawlenty said.

He said investigators were working to determine if the damage was significant enough trigger aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Likewise, the state was considering what it could provide.

Pawlenty said if the relief dollars do flow, they most likely will reimburse local governments for disaster expenses and will not go directly to residents. He noted that it appeared that most of the damage to private property was insured.

The storm that struck Hugo was one of several that battered the Midwest on Sunday, including a tornado that killed seven in northeast Iowa.

Elsewhere in Minnesota, baseball-sized hail shattered windows and car windshields. A tornado swept through Coon Rapids, toppling trees onto houses and tearing down power lines.

The Hugo area was the hardest hit. Residents reported a tornado in the area, but the National Weather Service was waiting on damage reports and its own survey before confirming that.

"It certainly looks awfully likely," meteorologist Todd Krause said. He started a formal survey of the damage patterns Monday.

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