Declarations

Declarations

Minnesota bridge fund

“I think the message is that Minnesotans … had a tremendous emotional and generous outpouring in response to the disaster.”

— Chris Langer, vice president of communications for the Minneapolis Foundation, one of the organizers of the Minnesota Helps fund comments on the generous outpouring from citizens into a fund set up to help victims of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse. The fund amount has grown to more than $564,000, organizers said. Much of the money was to be distributed to groups that offered help such as counseling and medical cost reimbursement. Churches and charities that help disaster victims, their families and first responders have submitted proposals showing how their budgets were stretched after the April first collapse in Minneapolis.

Disaster hero

“I love ‘MacGyver. You could give him a sock and a piece of string and he could somehow create electricity for the whole city.”

— Don Cooke, senior vice president for philanthropy of the Chicago-based McCormick Tribune Foundation, said his organization polled Americans about who they would want by their sides in a disaster and most Americans chose the 1980s TV show character, “MacGyver.” Participants were given a choice among seven fictional heroes for help in an emergency. The McCormick Tribune Foundation poll has a serious purpose: Urging Americans to become better prepared for disasters. In other questions, seven in 10 respondents said it was very or somewhat likely that their community would suffer some kind of disaster during the next 10 years. About a quarter of respondents thought the most likely disaster to hit their community would be a tornado; about 6 percent said a terrorist attack. Six in 10 respondents said they had set aside an emergency kit featuring a flashlight, a portable radio and water, among other items.

North Dakota tornado

“I slept through the Northwood Tornado, August 26, 2007.”

— Doris Johnson, 93, is credited with sleeping through a major tornado that swept through her town of Northwood, N.D., that caused $3.5 million in uninsured losses. Johnson had taken out her hearing aids when she went to bed early. Her grandson, Jeff Elingson, who lives in Northwood, ran through downed trees and power lines to rescue his grandmother. Johnson’s daughter, Arla Frigstad, who lives in Minneapolis-St. Paul, said Johnson’s house was destroyed. The only room with a roof still partially intact was Johnson’s bedroom. Subsequently, the 93-year-old’s children ordered her a pink T-shirt that says, “I slept through the Northwood Tornado, August 26, 2007.”