Several Tornadoes, One An EF3, Reported In West-Central Minnesota

Teresa Akerman hunkered down under a table in the basement of her home outside Ashby, Minn., Wednesday afternoon as a tornado took aim at her farm. Shaking, she sent a text message to her daughter to tell her she loved her.

“I didn’t know if I’d be able to say that again,” Akerman, 67, said the day after at least one and possibly two twisters roared across Otter Tail County in west-central Minnesota. “It sounded like a great big wind machine. It was the sound of death.”

Akerman survived unscathed, and her house, aside from the south wall being splattered with mud, grass and water stains, did, too. But others were not so fortunate.

Seth Nelson, 30, of Battle Lake, was killed when a tornado struck a machine shop where he was working, said Lt. Keith Van Dyke of the Otter Tail County Sheriff’s Office.

The shop and a nearby home were “swept off their foundations and blown away,” he said.