It was 21-years ago today (May 12th) at 11:48 AM when one of the worst storms in Wisconsin history roared through the Village of St. Nazianz.
Former Fire Chief Fred “Fritz” Koeppen spoke with Seehafer News about his memories of the massive storm that would live forever in the minds of village residents.
He recalled that the National Weather Service announced that a big storm including baseball-sized hail was going through Winnebago County. Koeppen remembered saying to himself, “Baseball? Holly mackerel that is some pretty big stuff.”
Then, Calumet and Sheboygan Counties were added to the severe weather warnings. But, nothing about Manitowoc County to which Koeppen responded “we’re in the middle of this thing.”
He then called his Assistant Fire Chief John Schnell, and asked him to check the weather online. Schnell initially said the radar appeared to show that the storm would miss this area, but then it crossed Lake Winnebago. Koeppen said that Schnell was stunned at what happened once that happened, saying it tripled in size.
“It sucked all the water out of Lake Winnebago,” Koeppen explained. “That’s where all the big hail came from I guess.
Coincidentally, Koeppen and his friend Larry Huber, the fire coordinator at LTC were in his store putting together a class for their fire department. Together they sheltered the flowers that were outside on Mother’s Day weekend and riding lawnmowers moving them to a shed across the road and proceeded to drive to the fire station.
He says even though they weren’t under a warning at that time he decided to sound the emergency siren in the village as the sky became pitch black and the storm lasted less than a minute. That was followed by a massive flood of water coming downtown on County Highway A.
Koeppen recalled the building he was in shifting, the roof on the old fire station was gone, and when he went outside and looked up the road, “It looked like we had a bomb go off in the village. All the power lines were down, buildings destroyed, roofs off.”
Koeppen was thankful that this storm, later declared to be an F1 tornado, didn’t strike at night.
Bob Carrol, the director of the Valders Ambulance was placed in charge of EMS in the wake of the storm. Koeppen told us that he breathed a sigh of relief when he learned that there were no fatalities as a result of the storm.
There were however 35-injuries, and millions of dollars in damage not only in St. Nazianz but in other areas of Manitowoc and Calumet Counties on May 12th, 2000.
Once the storm had passed, the retired fire chief remembers stepping outside to a smell of green grass, leaves, and natural gas, something he says “he will never forget.”