Lives spared as tornado hits Hartland

When Gage Flatness’ emergency radio began going off with severe weather alerts, he and his wife, Abby Flatness, and their 7-month-old daughter took cover in the basement of their Hartland home.
Gage Flatness is the fire chief in the tiny town of Hartland located in northern Freeborn County.
“There were three or four minutes where it got super windy and we could see the house shake,” said Abby Flatness, who grew up in Owatonna.
Abby Flatness was surprised by what she saw once she came up from the basement after the storm passed. As soon as she got outside, she could tell a tornado had hit by seeing the destruction.
In what became a historic December outbreak in Minnesota, the National Weather Service (NWS) confirmed the tornado as EF2. On Monday, the NWS confirmed three additional tornadoes in Freeborn County, bringing last week’s total to 12. Never before has Minnesota ever seen a tornado in December.
Freeborn County now has the distinction of having the earliest tornado on record in Minnesota as well as the latest. On March 6, 2017, a tornado hit Clarks Grove, another small community in Freeborn County.
During last week’s tornado, several buildings in the downtown area of Hartland were severely damaged, including Olson Excavating, which is a family business involving Gage Flatness and his father Brandon Flatness, who started the business in 1965.
Abby Flatness said the building housing her family’s business would likely be torn down along with several other businesses. Another hard hit business was Arcadian Bank, which was destroyed. The post office has been closed due to damage.
Olson Excavating will likely rebuild next year, but probably won’t be in the same place, according to Abby Flatness. “Things can be rebuilt… lives cannot,” she said. “There was no casualties, no injuries—that was a blessing.”
The EF2 tornado touched down about 1 mile southwest of Hartland before moving through the town, lifting two miles northeast of Hartland, according to damage survey. The twister carved a path 2.17 miles long in just three minutes from 7:10 p.m. to 7:13 p.m.
The NWS had issued a tornado warning until 7:30 p.m. for Freeborn County at 6:41 p.m., according to Sheriff Kurt Freitag. He said severe weather entered the county just minutes later, first hitting the Alden area in the western part of the county.
 
Steele County damage
 
In Steele County, heavy winds caused damage in the southern part of the county, mostly east of Bixby.
A spokesperson for the NWS confirmed on Monday that the damage in Steele County was straight-line winds and not a tornado.
Power outages began rolling in around 7:30 p.m. Dec. 15, according to Dan Meier, operations manager with Steele-Waseca Cooperative Electric. He said the cooperative had to replace 18 broken poles.
Steele-Waseca utilized 29 lineman to restore power with 12 of its own and 17 from other cooperatives and contractors, Meier said, adding all power had been restored by 8 p.m. the following night.
The Steele County Board is scheduled to meet in a special meeting tonight (Wednesday) to declare State of Emergency and request disaster assistance from the state.
An initial storm damage report, which was compiled by Kristen Sailer, emergency management director, estimates $234,300 of damages in Steele County. The largest portion of damages is $75,000 to Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency and $60,000 to Steele-Waseca cooperative. 
Of the damages in Steele County, $155,476 was attributed to utilities, according to Sailer. Another $46,000 was spent on cleaning up debris.