Golden Valley Residents 'Very Lucky'

While Sunday’s tornado wreaked havoc in Theodore Wirth Park and North Minneapolis, it did surprisingly little damage in Golden Valley.

While city officials have no official count of the damaged homes and property, Fire Chief Mark Kuhnly termed the city and its residents “very lucky.”

Crews from the city’s fire and public works departments spent Sunday night and much of Monday clearing trees and debris from streets, often working near private, commercial crews hired by property owners to clear fallen trees from homes and driveways.

Massive trees were torn and toppled, down to the roots, across the yards of several homes on and near Glenwood Avenue. Fallen trees buried two cars in one driveway on Glenwood, while private crews were working at a home nearby after fallen trees knocked over a utility pole and some connected power lines.

 “We were very lucky it wasn’t worse,” Kuhnly said. “I don’t know if it’s because the homes here are more spread out or that the tornado just picked up steam after it left here, but we didn’t get hit nearly as bad as we could have.”

Kuhnly expects city crews to continue their post-tornado cleanup for the next two to three days.