When the roaring winds stop and the ground swallows the last puddles of murky water. When the debris is piled up and hauled away on the same road the volunteers and news cameras traveled out of town. When all is scarred and silent, that’s when the most personal level of healing begins.

When Wadena, Minnesota, celebrated the resiliency of its community on June 17, 2011, one year after an EF4 tornado ripped through the west side of town, the Johnson family wasn’t there. Monty, Linda and two of their three children were several hundred miles away on vacation.

“We had to get out of here,” Linda said. “We are reminded of the tornado every single day. Our family just needed time away from the whole subject.”

A year later, talking of the tornado can bring Linda to tears.

On that June day, a few minutes before 5 p.m., a colleague of Monty’s called him on his cell phone. He was on his way to Fergus Falls and spotted a huge funnel cloud heading toward Wadena. Get your family into the basement now, he urged Monty.

Just as Linda, Monty, and their 12-year-old daughter hit the last stair, the power hook-up exploded off the side of their house. They dove under a table and held on to each other as the tornado battered their neighborhood.

“We were screaming through the whole thing,” Linda said. “Our ears were popping, and trees and pieces of other people’s houses were crashing into our house.”

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It was hard for the Johnson family to eat or sleep. That summer in Wadena, there were 11 more tornado warnings, each one bringing fear right to the surface.

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When they came up from the basement, they found glass shards sticking out of walls and furniture. A bench from the basketball court across the street was impaled in their refrigerator. Tree limbs and branches littered the inside of the house. Their leafy, pleasant neighborhood had been destroyed.

Monty, the dean of Academics and Student Services at Minnesota State Community and Technical College-Wadena, discovered that the tornado had seriously damaged the college and demolished the high school.

Linda and Monty worked to exhaustion every day for weeks as they tried to put things back together at home and work. It was hard for them to eat or sleep. They had good friends by their side, but the trauma of loss ran deep. They moved three times in five months and their daughter just kept saying she wanted to “go home.” That summer in Wadena, there were 11 more tornado warnings, each one bringing fear right to the surface. The strain was enormous.

“I’m not over the stress yet, but I’m getting there,” Linda said. “I didn’t seek professional help but I probably should have. I just prayed for strength an awful lot.” Nightmares tormented their daughter for months after the tornado. Storms continue to make her anxious.

A year after the tornado, Monty wondered if he had yet to feel its real emotional impact. “I’ve been so focused on what has to get done at the college, that I wonder what will happen when things slow up a little,” he said. “What emotions are going to come out? Or have I coped with them already? I don’t know. I’ve never dealt with anything of this magnitude before.”

Suffering in Silence

WENDY MOLSTAD: “The men here are historically strong and tough, but I had a 75-year-old farmer break down and cry on my shoulder.”

Each person’s reaction to trauma is his or her own, yet research has found that after a collective disaster like a tornado or a flood, a common emotional pattern emerges. Psychologists point to a “heroic” period, where adrenaline flows freely and helps people meet immediate needs like food, clothing and shelter. Then, after about two months, people may begin—or allow themselves—to fall apart.

That falling apart can last for months, and truly recovering from a disaster can take three to six years. Or longer. Wendy Molstad is the case manager for Wadena Otter Tail Long-Term Recovery (WOTLR). Molstad gets two to three new requests for assistance each week from those hard hit by the tornado. Sometimes that means finding housing, paying for heating oil, or lending money for repairs until the insurance check arrives. For her, meeting practical needs is far easier than helping people face post-tornado emotional damage.

The barriers to seeking help are similar to those in small towns all across America. People are proud, it goes against their notion of self-reliance, and it can carry the stigma of mental illness. They also tend to downplay their problems in the face of greater suffering elsewhere.

“When it comes to counseling, most people here won’t seek it,” said Molstad. “It is too big a hurdle for them.”

Staying the Course

	TIP SHEET: The signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.
	(click to download/view a PDF)

But the need for some kind of continuing help in Wadena and Otter Tail counties is clear. Nerves are raw, reactions unexpected and fatigue comes quickly.

And as for everywhere disaster strikes, financial difficulties can exacerbate emotional stress.

“The men here are historically strong and tough, but I had a 75-year-old farmer break down and cry on my shoulder,” said Molstad. “He asked me if he had done the right thing to rebuild after the tornado. He was now in debt, when he thought he would leave the farm to his kids free and clear.”

The emotional effects of the tornado can be seen in children, too, though Christie Meier worked hard to lessen their impact. An associate in ministry at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Meier brought Camp Noah to Wadena two months after the tornado. A program of Lutheran Social Services, the five-day camp is designed to help children head off severe stress after a disaster. With a secular curriculum, the camp helped children tell their own stories and talk about their fears.

In a follow-up session in December, Meier saw a difference. “Just under the surface, there were still open emotional wounds, but they were happy kids again,” she said.

Tending to the obvious suffering in the community has been a full-time job for more than a year for many people. WOTLR is an organization that was set up after the tornado to help community members get back on their feet. A 20-person committee including pastors, social workers, bankers, business people and volunteers from Wadena and Otter Tail counties runs the organization. The members’ dedication to the community has not wavered—nearly every one of them still shows up for the twice-monthly meetings.

Kitchen Table Counseling

The Cronk family was among those who experienced emotional trauma after the Wadena tornado.

WOLTR has a sub-committee dedicated to spiritual and emotional needs. Some people come to the committee, but mostly one or two committee members go to them, knowing they’re depressed or that they’re living in a house badly in need of repair. They drink a lot of coffee around kitchen tables as they build the familiarity essential for allowing people to let down their guard and ask for help.

Still, their efforts are paying off—and proving that the residents of Otter Tail County are healing. “I’ve had to ask some farmers in the area 10 times if I can come visit them before they say, ‘OK. Fine. Come over,’” said Molstad. “But once I get the trust of one, others follow.” IQ