VIDEO: Visit Pilger today, and you wouldn’t see much evidence of the devastation the tornado brought five years ago.
There are a few empty lots where the former middle school and other buildings once stood, but the town also has a fresh feel with new buildings and a new life.
And everybody who was in Pilger that day has a story.
“I looked off to the southwest and here comes a big black cloud,” said Jim Duncan. It’s a day he’ll never forget. “I heard that bang and that’s about the last thing I remember.”
Duncan’s house was the first building hit in Pilger.
“Looking up, we could see the whole sky,” he recalled. “Our whole house was gone.”
“It’s the weirdest feeling I’ve ever felt in my life,” said Ryan Kruger of the nearby Farmers Co-op. “The weight lifted off your chest and ears popping.”
Kruger snapped a photo of the approaching twister then headed for the office vault with a half-dozen coworkers, where they hunkered down and rode out the tornado in the concrete cube.