Gallery: PAW 2004-19

"I'd rather be in [boring] Minnesota"
The aftermath of a tornado touchdown, Roseville MN, May 2004

On the LUG (Leica User Group) list, one of the participants who lives in New Orleans and just missed Hurricane Ivan commented that Minnesota was looking like an awful nice place to live just around then. Certainly, Minnesota has the reputation of being ... somewhat boring ... what with Garrison Keillor doing his best every week on the Prairie Home Companion to make us look like a state of Norwegian Lutherans, ten thousand lakes, minus 40° weather, and way too many dairy cows.

But things do get exciting in Minnesota. My parents came to visit me in May from Japan (land of earthquakes, volcanos, and typhoons). As we were sitting down to dinner, the tornado sirens went off during a thunderstorm. They sound like air raid sirens. My parents, who both lived through the War, to their credit did not jump under the table. Instead we scoffed and kept eating (although I did turn on the weatherradio). Well, it turns out that we really, really, really should have gone down to the basement a'la the Wizard of Oz for a tornado touched down just two miles north of us.

These photos are from the aftermath of the next morning. My mother is kindly providing a sense of scale to the size of the damage (above). Full grown maple and elm trees were topped by the tornado. It was no Hurricane Ivan, but if one of the trees fell on your house, I doubt you'd care.

These photos were taken with a second-generation Elmarit 28mm f/2.8 on a Leica M7. My Elmarit was bought second-hand and has some wear damage on the front element, this can be seen as the loss of contrast in the center of the image. Oh well, it's off to Kanto Camera to have the front element replaced.

Filename: 040520a-23-ParentsVisit-M7.jpg
Equipment: Leica M7, 28mm f/2.8 Elmarit (II)