“A walkout ends, and strikers find a changed world - MSNBC” plus 3 more

A walkout ends, and strikers find a changed world - MSNBC
Friends of Darrell Brewer host benefit 'Cruise In' - Everything Alabama Blog
Cincinnati Graphic Design Company Downtown Cincinnati - PRLog (free press release)
A mighty wind - Goshen News

A walkout ends, and strikers find a changed world - MSNBC

Posted: 17 Oct 2009 05:21 PM PDT

ELKHART, Ind. - By 10:30 a.m., the lot at Disabled American Veterans Post 19 is nearly full, and a table spread with potato salad and Port-a-Pit chicken beckons.

The only thing missing is a banner, mutters one of the workers inside the rental hall to another: "Welcome to Our Last Supper."

This is a gathering to mark the end of a 40-month fight over who owns the craftsmanship that gives life to a factory floor. These men and women logged decades pressing, soldering and buffing — making trombones and trumpets of such sinuous precision they are called the Stradivarius of brass.

In the end, though, there is no music.

"Lord God, you know what the plan is for our lives," Bertha Carpenter prays as fellow workers bow their heads. "And let us be ever grateful."

This is the story of a decision — of 234 workers, one company and countless consequences.

Back when times were good, many Americans made decisions that seemed like sure things. Millions of families gambled their homes, betting prices could only go up. Others bet their retirement security, banking on the stock market.

But workers at the Vincent Bach factory bet on what seemed like much more modest expectations. When they walked out on strike, they had no get-rich-quick illusions. At best, the thinking went, if they stuck together they'd keep hold of their prized rung on the economic ladder.

They bet their jobs on it.

Today that bet is being called. But like Rip Van Winkle, who fell asleep for 20 years and came back to a place he barely recognized, the men and women of Bach return to a vastly different landscape than the one they left behind.

And from here, there is no going back.

___

There's a good chance you've heard of Elkhart. Over the last year, the city of 52,000 along the St. Joseph River gained notoriety even the most desperate chamber official would never have dreamed up: It became a poster child for the recession.

Millions across the country lost jobs, but Elkhart was slammed by the nation's largest jump in unemployment. By this spring, one in five workers were out of a paycheck. Many of the factories that made it the capital of recreational vehicle manufacturing shut down. Twice during his campaign and twice since, Barack Obama came to Elkhart County to spotlight the nation's economic despair.

But this story begins in a very different Elkhart, one that can be hard to remember.

Back in 2006, that Elkhart was singled out by a Federal Reserve economist as one of the Midwest's "jewels in the rust." Unemployment hovered just above 4 percent. The RV plants were hiring and the money was good.

Times were so good, Stacy Curtis recalls, that you couldn't walk into a restaurant on a Friday night and not expect to wait half an hour for a table. The Elkhart Truth printed columns of want ads.

But on the floor of the Bach factory there was little, if any, talk of going elsewhere for a paycheck.

Bach, a squat cinderblock building set back from Industrial Parkway's elbow-shaped bend, looked like just another factory. But two things made it a special place to work — the interlocking relationships of the people inside and the nearly timeless craft they practiced.

The place was like a big family, workers say, and it's no exaggeration.

Stacy Curtis followed her dad in to Bach, where she met husband, Steve, one of the buffers blanketed in red dust her father supervised. Brad Milliken hired in as a janitor and night watchman at 17 when his dad put the good word in, then did the same for younger brother, John, after he got a promotion.

Job openings at Bach were guarded like secrets, not least because of the pay. In a town where 45 percent of all jobs were in factories, Bach paid near the top. By 2006, the average worker made $21 an hour.

But the family sensibility went beyond the paychecks.

On Fridays, workers circled around covered-dish lunches on the shop floor. On birthdays, they serenaded each other on whatever instrument was within reach. They took up collections for retiring workers, who were presented with bud vases made from a trombone mouthpiece.

Bach was equally bound by pride. Others factories could build cars or computers to spec. But how many of those workers could call themselves craftsmen?

In the music world, Vincent Bach is synonymous with cornets, trombones and, especially, trumpets. Bach made horns for all wallets, but the showpieces were its Stradivarius trumpets: gleaming, curvaceous beauties commanding $2,500 or more from orchestral professionals.

"Once you got done with an instrument," Jeff Hoogenboom says, "it was like a jewel."

That pride reached back to the 1920s when the original Bach, an Austrian immigrant, set up shop in New York. He was so certain of his trumpets' superiority he named them for the world's most legendary instrument.

"The Stradivarius Model C trumpet is the finest C trumpet ever produced," Bach's first catalog boasted in 1926. It "has a bright brilliant tone which strikes through the fortissimo playing orchestra like lightning through the dark sky."

Bach sold his company in 1961. The new owner moved it to Elkhart, the center of the trumpet and tuba trade long before it became the RV capital. By the 1970s, Elkhart factories supplied 40 percent of the world's band instruments.

At the new plant, work went on much as it always had — sheets of brass pressed one at a time, bells shaped on mandrills inherited from Bach himself.

But the company and the world around it began to change.

In 1993, two investment bankers who'd previously worked for junk bond king Michael Milken acquired Bach's parent firm in a leveraged buyout. Two years later, they bought famed piano maker Steinway & Sons and merged the businesses under the Steinway name, creating the nation's largest musical instrument manufacturer.

The new owners pushed to speed production. They eliminated the plant's saxophone line, cutting the union work force from 450 to 234. The company was making money, earning $13.8 million in 2005. But executives were wary of Chinese producers, whose $200 trumpets targeted the large student market.

The message was clear in "town meetings" president John Stoner called on one of the plant's loading docks: Change was not a choice. Stoner infuriated some workers, worker Dave Barany says, telling them: "We have the equipment. We own your skills."

The company would not comment for this story, but its demands were clear. On the final day of their contract in March 2006, every worker returned home to find a letter from Stoner.

Bach was losing money on its student instruments. An Asian manufacturer was offering to take over for a fraction of the cost.

"This opportunity for dramatic savings has created a dilemma — for me personally and the Company," Stoner wrote. "If we outsource the student line instruments, it will only be a matter of time before the step up and pro lines are similarly affected. So while I would prefer to keep work and jobs at Bach, we cannot and will not do so if it means we produce instruments at a loss."

The company demanded cuts that would drop average pay $6 an hour. Workers would pay more for health insurance and overtime would be mandatory, a requirement some called a "family killer."

On a Saturday morning — April 1, 2006 — workers gathered to respond.

"We hollered and hollered and said, 'Hell, yeah,'" Stacy Curtis says.

The vote was 185-37. The strike was on.

___

The first night on the picket line an icy wind whipped down Industrial Parkway. Strikers huddled around burn barrels. But the mood was upbeat and more than a little ornery.

In a shop where even the youngest had 10 or 15 years in, most recalled the only other recent strike — a walkout in the early 1990s that lasted just eight days. Back then, Stacy Curtis' dad, a supervisor who remained in the plant, would open the door and wave to her on the picket line.

This time would be different, they knew. Friends in management had warned workers to be prepared, to salt away their cash.

"We know exactly where the pressure points are on the union. They know where they are on us," Steinway CEO Dana Messina told Wall Street analysts soon after the strike began.

Many jobs in the plant took months to learn and left supervisors struggling. Without them, workers joked, the company would be reduced to selling inferior "musically shaped objects." If the company didn't value them, they'd take their skills somewhere else.

"We were craftsmen," says Jerry Stayton, then the president of United Auto Workers Local 364, which represented the workers.

Some workers thought the strike might end in as little as two weeks.

"If we're out here two months, I'll be surprised," Stacy Curtis told herself.

A few days after the strike began, the company flag went missing from atop the pole and a Chinese flag flapped in its place. The company dialed the police — the first of 314 times they'd be called in.

But police would not resolve the strike. Workers built plywood sheds along the right of way. They rotated in for picket duty around the clock, bringing along children in their pickups, gathering around TVs powered off generators, holding fish fries.

After 32 years at the plant, John Milliken felt almost giddy. Now the trumpet assembler had mornings to savor breakfast with his wife and daughter. He joked with his brother on the picket line. Co-workers kidded him when he showed up on a bike. But Milliken marveled at the smell of the lilacs along the route and the weight he was taking off from the exercise.

In early June, negotiators came back with an offer including buyouts, but it was rejected by all but four workers.

Ten days later, the company announced it was hiring replacements. A fight broke out between strikers and a car full of men come to claim their jobs. Stacy Curtis had a friend teach her to swear in Spanish so she could yell in two languages at replacements headed in to the plant.

Then, with tensions rising, the two sides grasped at compromise — one many workers now say was probably the best chance to end the strike. The offer called for workers to return at wages capped at $21 an hour, along with pricier insurance and mandatory overtime.

"We should accept this and live to fight another day," Stayton, the union president, told workers from a microphone at the front of the DAV hall.

The sticking point was the workers who had taken their place. Company negotiators said they'd be let go, but few believed them.

"Get it in writing! Get it in writing!" strikers shouted. A few minutes later, they voted the contract down. Midway through it's fifth month, the strike was no closer to resolution than the day it had begun.

___

Criticism of the strike was growing and it wasn't confined to the letters to the editor in the paper.

It was hard enough for Stacy Curtis to talk about the strike with her father, the career nonunion manager. But the couple hadn't expected it would be so difficult to justify it to their son, an Army recruiter, and their daughter in the Air Force.

"The girl just asked me today, `Why are you all still talking about this?'" Stacy says. "I said `Stephanie, you just don't understand.'"

It wasn't any easier for Tim Heminger, an instrument assembler with more than 18 years at the plant. Heminger, who drove in from a conservative Michigan farming community, was caught off guard when his minister began lectured him on the wrongness of the union.

"My blood pressure rose up," Heminger says. "I finally said you know we need to change the subject or I'm going to say something I'm going to regret saying."

At weekly meetings, the union handed out $200 strike pay checks. It also picked up workers' health insurance — a critical safety net on Labor Day when Steve Curtis' heart gave out on the picket line.

But for workers who'd expected the walkout to last weeks, money was growing tight.

Stayton, who'd long worked a second job, took on more hours at Star Tire, fueling criticism from fellow strikers that he wasn't giving enough time to leading the local. In January, Brad Milliken found a job sweeping floors at a cargo trailer factory.

But the place was dirty and the work was hard. Brad was a good 20 years older than most other workers. Some called him the "retiree" — sticking an expletive in front to make clear they meant no respect. The strike was a year old and John Milliken could see his brother was unhappy. He had no idea.

On April 10, the brothers — longtime fans of Notre Dame women's basketball — joined a crowd of 400 for the team's annual banquet and took their seats. Brad turned to John.

"I don't want to make you get sick here," he said.

John looked at his brother, confused, waiting for an explanation.

"I'm going back in," Brad said.

Brad Milliken was hardly the first. For months a small but steady trickle of workers had been crossing the picket line and returning to their jobs, winning scorn from strikers left behind. Milliken was "Scab No. 37."

John understood Brad's reasons. He still loved his brother. But that didn't make the decision easy to stomach. Brad had long enjoyed a friendship with Stoner, the company president. The younger Milliken, though, was increasingly furious at management for ruining the plant and the lives of its workers. "Thugs," he called them. He'd never go back.

Brad returned to find parts for 1,200 Stradivarius trumpets stacked up, waiting to be assembled.

Meanwhile, at the Curtis house, Stacy and Steve examined their expenses. NASCAR tickets would have to go. So would vacations and dinners out. They canceled rental of their weekend spot on a Michigan lake, sold the golf cart and the camper.

"The running joke was that we were all going to live in strike sheds," Stacy Curtis says.

Thanks to a judge's injunction, workers were restricted in the numbers they could deploy to the picket lines. The strike settled into a holding pattern. The peace didn't last.

Replacement workers called the National Labor Relations Board. With the strike entering its 19th month, a vote was set on whether the union would continue to represent plant workers. But the calculus had shifted.

Strikers lined up to vote. But so did replacement workers, inside the plant. When some strikers reached the table they were told their vote might not count because their jobs had been taken.

Workers' anger was also finding another target — the union itself, which they blamed for poor representation and counsel.

At the same time, the company was learning to live without the strikers. Steve Curtis found work at E.K. Blessing Co._ one of a handful of instrument makers left in town — then discovered his new employer had a contract from Bach to make trumpets. He was assigned to other work, but it left him uncomfortable.

Then again, at least he had a job.

___

Early on, work after Bach was relatively easy to come by. But by the summer of 2008, Elkhart's strength — the RV factories — was turning in to a painful weakness.

Families had once road-tripped to Elkhart to choose a customized home on wheels. But the recession was taking hold and as consumers cut back, they crossed RVs off their lists. Lenders cut credit to manufacturers. Dealers slashed orders. Plant after plant — Odyssey Group, Pilgrim International, Monaco Coach — sent workers home and shut down lines.

In months, unemployment doubled. By this spring, the area jobless rate reached 18.9 percent. Within Elkhart, it neared 21 percent.

John Milliken was certain: The strike was long beyond resolving. When he got an offer to be a custodian at Northridge High School, he was grateful. At $13 an hour, it paid much less than Bach. But benefits were generous. After the plant's swelter, the school's air conditioning was wonderful. For the first time in years, he felt like the people he worked for accorded him respect.

Steve Curtis, laid off from another horn maker, grabbed a friend's offer for 20 hours a week in his instrument repair shop.

But the odd jobs that had kept third-generation bellmaker Steve Kiefer afloat vanished. When his 1988 pickup broke down, he couldn't afford to fix it. He fell behind on his mortgage and began thinking it might be better to let the bank have the place.

On the strike's third anniversary, workers gathered at the pavilion in Elkhart's McNaughton Park. Too much time had passed for a rally. They called it a reunion. But between the speeches, talk at the tables was full of apprehension.

The battle would be decided by the vote. After months of lawyers' arguments, federal inspectors tallied up ballots — 113 to get rid of the union, 107 to keep it. But eight ballots — enough to swing it either way — were still contested and uncounted.

On Monday, Aug. 4, strikers were back on the picket line when cell phones began to ring. The ruling was in. The ballots of two strikers — James Klein and William Seigler — would not be counted because they had been replaced.

After three years, four months and four days, there was nowhere to go but home.

"It's over," Stacy Curtis told Steve when she found him at work. "It's over."

___

Before the last meal is served, buffers and bellmakers cluster anxiously around a health insurance salesman's table in one corner of the Veteran's hall. Workers with gray hair pull chairs alongside one another and concede they were only a few years from retirement anyway.

But for workers in their 40s and 50s, it's not nearly so clear.

A few call Brad Milliken: "Hey, can you get me in?" Even that wouldn't turn back the clock. Two weeks after the strike ended, managers summoned workers who crossed the line and cut their pay. Brad, who made $24.50 an hour before the strike, is down to $17.

Others see their best chance beyond Elkhart. Deneen Stout, just divorced and with a new associate's degree, figures she'll move away and find a job as a medical assistant.

"Don't put any dates or years on your resume," she counsels former co-worker Chuck Miller. "That way they can't date you. I learned that in college."

By noon, workers are filtering out, carrying leftover chicken in foam boxes. But Stacy Curtis is not quite ready to call it over.

She points her pickup back down Industrial Parkway for the first time in weeks. In front of the Bach plant, she passes the one remaining testament to the past three years — a light blue mailbox strikers put up when the picket line became a second home — and slows to tally all the empty parking spaces.

But now she's seen enough. She gives the F-150 a little gas. Down the street, she's heard, a warehouse is getting ready to open. Maybe they need a worker with experience. She might as well ask.

This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Friends of Darrell Brewer host benefit 'Cruise In' - Everything Alabama Blog

Posted: 17 Oct 2009 04:10 PM PDT

By Linde Britt

October 17, 2009, 10:42AM

All rods, antique cars, and bikes are invited to the Tillman's Corner area, for a fun day of good food, door prizes, 50/50 pot, goodie bags and good music all to help a special friend diagnosed with cancer, Darrell "Fuzz" Brewer.

The Cruise-In Car Show will take place from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. this Saturday with parking allowed in front of the following businesses: Taco Bell, Carquest Auto Parts, Mikes Transmission, O'Reilly's Auto Parts, Burger King and Blockbuster Video. Additional parking for trailers will be at Buddy's Auto and RV Center. Any and all donations will be greatly appreciated.

This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Cincinnati Graphic Design Company Downtown Cincinnati - PRLog (free press release)

Posted: 17 Oct 2009 07:49 AM PDT

PRLog (Press Release) – Oct 17, 2009 – While vehicle wraps are an easy way to get noticed, but getting remembered is more tricky. MuralPop will provide you with a design that not only communicates your business, but make it stick in the minds of potential clients. Visit our Website: www.MuralPop.com

Promotional vehicle wraps will reach potential clients that may have been impossible to reach otherwise. Now advertising is as easy as a weekend drive down the coast!
Off Contact provides high quality full color digital prints that perform. We specialize in printing large format graphics on 3M™ materials; i.e. Controltac™ and Scotchcal™ vinyls. We also produce durable vinyl banners, backlit signs and quality posters.
Visit our Website: www.MuralPop.com

Our Portfolio includes Letters of Recommendation from, The City of Cincinnati, The City of Covington KY, GLH Custom Homes, Chase Audio, MasterPeice Audio, Kids First Sports Center, The Berringer Crawford Museum, FastTrackAuction, And More at your Request!
We have been providing custom golf car, automotive marine graphics as well as custom signs for over twelve years.
Located in Cincinnati and delivering right to your door, no matter where you are. We can handle international and orders within North America.
Excellent Decal Products - Superior Service
Our goal at MuralPop is to provide you, our customer, with excellent service at competitive pricing with a fast turnaround time.
How long do I have to wait after placing an order? Using state of the art manufacturing equipment, orders are able to be shipped the same to next day.
We use only the finest (automotive grade) high performance premium vinyl available in a wide variety of 30 colors in stock and unlimited graphic design choices available.

Custom Golf Cart Decals Plus More Products
Whether you are a private owner, or a golf car dealer — You know that golf car graphics can enhance the appearance of a golf cart. In addition to our best selling golf car graphic kits, browse our selection of accessory products such as
Full Color Graphics
Fender Trim
Specialty Kits
2-Color Graphics
Basic One Piece Designs

Custom Golf Cart Decals Plus More Products
We understand that golf car graphics can enhance the appearance of your cars. Our web site features our best selling golf car graphics. A selection of Fender Trim is also available. Do you have a special need? Call us and let us know how we can help. We offer automotive, marine and decals for pocket bikes.
Visit our sister site mxhitac.com for a wide selection of decal stickers and graphic kits for boats, cars, trucks and more.

With MuralPop it's quick and easy to customize your golf car with our versatile Body Wraps. With a wide array of Animal Wraps we can make your golf game look like no other. Why not reflect your play style on your car? With our help, you can make it happen within a couple hours!

WINTER SPECIALS: Vinyl Banners, Aluminum Signs…

It's our 12th year in business - check out our great specials on coroplast signs, vinyl decals, vehicle magnets, vinyl banners, business cards, and much more.

Ready-to-apply Vinyl Decals & Vinyl Lettering

Need some vinyl decals or lettering for your snowmobile, boat, truck, vehicle, store window etc.? We can provide you with quick and affordable vinyl decals and lettering that is ready for you to apply. Available to be shipped anywhere in North America. Either email us your digital file or instructions as per colour, size and we'll take care of the rest Visit: www.muralpop.com,

Signs - Design, Production & Installation
Talk to our experienced sign department today about your specific project. No job is too big or too small. Simple vinyl vehicle lettering, outdoor vinyl banners, digital vinyl graphics for store front windows, and building or vehicle wraps

Digitally Printed, Full Colour Vinyl Banners
Need to get your message noticed?
Use our popular vinyl banners for advertising your company's message at a trade show, grand opening or special promotion etc. Full colour, photographic quality graphics make your message stand out! We print directly from your supplied file (eps, jpg, tif, pdf) and prices include the grommets as well.

Vehicle / Fleet Graphics, Vinyl Lettering & Vehicle Wraps
What better way to advertise your company's information? Utilize the proven and very cost effective method to advertise your message wherever you go - trucks, vans, trailers, cars, boats, limos, buses, rv's etc. - We're here to help you get noticed - vehicle wraps (partial and full), magnetics, vinyl graphics and lettering etc… Cincinnati, Ohio 513-729-6965
Greenville South, Carolina 864-881-4857
Virginia Beach, Virginia 757-356-5958

This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

A mighty wind - Goshen News

Posted: 15 Oct 2009 04:55 PM PDT

Published: October 17, 2009 09:30 pm

A mighty wind

Two years ago, a tornado tore through Nappanee, destroying homes

Michael Wanbaugh
THE GOSHEN NEWS

NAPPANEE, Ind — By MICHAEL WANBAUGH

michael.wanbaugh@goshennews.com

NAPPANEE

Here in this proud little town along the Elkhart and Kosciusko county line, life again resembles its usual pace.

Downtown is alive with commerce and the coffee shop at the corner of Main and Market Streets is the depot for community conversation, Bible study and gossip.

Residents can once again treat themselves to an Oreo Blizzard from the Dairy Queen and run their car through John's Auto Spa, both businesses located along U.S. 6 on the eastern edge of town.

It has been two years since a powerful, EF3 tornado (Enhanced Fujita Scale) ripped through the east side of town. More than 300 homes and businesses were heavily damaged. Miraculously, there were no deaths and no life-threatening injuries.

"A lot of little things happened that night to keep us safe," Nappanee Mayor Larry Thompson said. "We were very fortunate."

"That night" was Oct. 18, 2007, a Thursday. It seemed like any other. But around late afternoon, the weather began to turn. A line of strong thunderstorms raced through the area early in the evening and a tornado watch was issued.

As the night grew longer, the conditions turned dangerous.

At 9:57 p.m. a supercell thunderstorm over Plymouth embedded itself in a storm wall that extended well into Michigan. The system barreled northeast over the Indiana countryside.

By 10:03 p.m. low-level circulation in the system was rapidly picking up speed.

As the hook echo continued to develop, the tornado took form at 10:05 p.m., dropping from the ominous sky three miles west of Bourbon and began its 25-minute, 20-mile trek through the counties of Marshall, Kosciusko and Elkhart.

Horror arrives

Don and Sandy Helmuth live in the 9400 block of West Hepton Road, two and a half miles south of U.S. 6 on the west edge of Nappanee.

Don, originally from Oklahoma, moved to Indiana in 1979 and started his own business. He has lived on Hepton Road for the past 21 years. Don's first wife died of cancer. Don and Sandy have now been married for nine years. On most days their dog Jesse, a large Rottweiler/sheperd mix strolls around the yard, wagging its large tail as cars move past the house.

The Helmuths are very involved in their church and work at ministering to handicapped people. It's not uncommon for them to entertain dozens of friends and family at their home at one time.

"We love to entertain," said Don. "We enjoy having guests in our home."

That night it was just Don and Sandy at home, who was still a little hampered from a surgery about 10 days earlier.

The couple had watched as a first wave of storms blew through the area earlier that evening. It seemed like a typical summer storm, but this was mid-October. Don wasn't too concerned about the weather and decided to finish up some work in the home office. Around 9:30 he grew tired and decided to go to bed.

Sandy stayed up a little longer working on a Bible study before eventually joining her husband in bed a little before 10 p.m.

As they laid there the tornado had reached EF1 strength and was intensifying as it ripped through country forests and Amish farms. The Helmuths had no idea what was coming.

About 10:10 p.m. the Helmuth's power went out. They were chatting in bed and could hear the wind picking up outside and the windows rattling.

Then all Don could hear was an eerie silence.

"I just reached down and pulled the covers over our heads," Don said, "because I knew what that kind of quiet meant. … I wouldn't say we were scared at all. There was a peace. We were at peace."

The silence was shattered by the tornado – an EF2 in strength at that point that was nearly a half mile wide – as it plowed into their home. The Helmuths stayed under the covers until the horror passed. When they finally peeked out, their home was unrecognizable and they were trapped in their bedroom.

As Don began looking for whatever kind of light he could find they heard the Nappanee tornado siren begin its howl from town. The storm was headed that way and it had taken most of their home with it.

Nappanee's storm

By this time Mayor Thompson had a good idea what was happening. Emergency crews had been monitoring the weather all night from the command center near downtown.

"It was a pretty normal day," Thompson said. "There was an earlier tornado watch, but it seemed like the storms had gone through the area."

After the first wave of storms that evening, Thompson and his wife ate their dinner at the relatively new Martin's Supermarket deli along U.S. 6 on the east end of town. As they ate, Thompson remembers commenting to his wife what a shame it would be to have a tornado come through the area.

They finished their meal and went home.

It was now after 10 p.m. and the weather conditions had deteriorated beyond most people's comprehension. Thompson was summoned to the command center. Emergency vehicles had already been dispatched throughout the town as part of its weather emergency plan.

When Thompson got in his car he heard something he had never heard in more than decade of being mayor.

"The tornado siren was going off," Thompson said. "I knew this was it."

When Thompson arrived at the command center the tornado was a mile south of town. It appeared to be heading toward a direct hit on downtown, which would take it through the central business district and likely into the most densely populated neighborhoods where hundreds of defenseless residents were wondering what was happening.

As the twister approached Ind. 19 on the south end of town, it angled slightly to the east, away from downtown and toward Nappanee's main industrial hub and fast food row along U.S. 6.

"That," Thompson said, "sparred us at the command center and the rest of downtown."

It wouldn't, however, spare the modest little neighborhood along south Jackson Street.

Havoc on Jackson Street

John and Deb Johnson live here at the quiet intersection of Jackson and Short streets on the south edge of town. It's been their address for the past 22 years. They have raised three children here as three pairs of bronzed baby shoes in the living room hutch will attest.

As the wicked frontal weather wall was concocting the tornado over Marshall County, John decided to go to bed. It was around 9:30 p.m. Like the Helmuths, he figured the storm system had run its course through the area. Plus, he had to be to work at Keystone RV in Goshen by 4:30 a.m. the next morning.

He drifted off to sleep as his girls watched a movie in the living room. It was fall break and there was no school in the morning.

It was after 10 p.m. and John was awoken by the terrifying blare of Nappanee's tornado siren. Startled, he instinctively raced to the living room and turned on a police scanner he keeps in the house. Dispatches from weather spotters warned him that a tornado was at C.R. 1350 and Ind. 19, about five blocks from where he and his family were standing.

By then the storm had swelled into an EF3 monster with winds estimated at 165 miles per hour. That's stronger than minimum sustained winds of a category 5 hurricane.

"I knew right then," John said, "we had to get somewhere quick."

The Johnson's house sets on a concrete slab. There was no basement to seek refuge in. Thinking quickly, John herded his family into the master bedroom and squeezed everybody inside a closet and shut the door. Counting his oldest daughter's boyfriend, there were six people waiting in the closest as the tornado barreled toward them.

"It hit the house less than a minute after we got in there," John said. "We could feel the house shaking. The door wanted to blow open so I was holding onto the doorknob to keep it shut."

Oddly, he said there was no panic inside the closet, echoing a word Don Helmuth used to describe his mindset while holding a comforter over his head.

"In my opinion, we were safe," John said. "I was at peace."

For about 45 seconds John held on for dear life as the fury of his unwelcome house guest tore through his garage, then into his living room and then moved on toward Fairmont Homes and the city's industrial park. The Johnson's oldest daughter, Jessica, started praying as the tornado hit. She didn't stop until after it had gone.

Most of the roof and the south end of the house were gone. The bedroom was still intact, but seriously disheveled. But inside the closet, with the exception of a damaged doorknob, nothing had been disturbed.

Deb Johnson said she was never really scared until they came back the next day in the daylight and saw the extent of the destruction.

"It was so quiet after it passed," John said. "You could actually hear the gas leaks at that point and the sirens from fire trucks trying to get here. You could hear chainsaws as they tried to clear a path. It took them about 20-30 minutes to get here."

At first John wasn't able to open the closet door. It was jammed and blocked by debris. Eventually he was able to push it open and start to process the extent of damage. After panning the room with his eyes, he turned back to his family with a gut-wrenching warning.

"You guys," he said, "better brace yourself."

Closing in on Blackstone

Emerson and Lee Minnich lived most of their lives just outside of Dayton Ohio. Emerson had worked in the insurance business. Nearing retirement they decided to move to Nappanee about five years ago to be close to their children and grandchildren who now lived here.

They bought a home – the biggest one they've ever owned – in the new Blackstone subdivision northeast of Nappanee. Their home sets on a little turnaround in the northwest corner of the subdivision and faces a field looking west toward town.

After the tornado left the Johnson's house it continued northeast, slashing through Nappanee's industrial park. It demolished buildings and finished products at Fairmont Homes.

It kept moving indiscriminately toward the retail and restaurant district where just a couple hours earlier Mayor Kauffman had dined with his wife and confessed to her he feared this exact scenario.

Businesses along the east stretch of U.S. 6, otherwise know as Market Street, were devastated as the twister lumbered through at roughly 20 miles per hour. The twister had solidified its stature as an EF3 tornado while leveling a gas station and gauging fast food restaurants.

It crossed the road and seemed to be heading out into the countryside on a path toward Goshen. A slight shift to the north may have spared the Blackstone development entirely. But the storm clipped the subdivision, plowing straight into the homes along the turnaround.

That night the Minnichs were not home. They were nearly 1,100 miles away in Keystone, S.D. where they were helping with a two-week ministry mission.

The Minnich's son, Ryan, was in the process of building a home down the street. After the tornado punched through, he rushed to his parent's home and began doing what he could to help.

The garage door had been sucked off the hinges. The pitched, cathedral ceiling was completely gone.

It was only 10:30 p.m. in South Dakota when Emerson, answered a call from his son on his cell phone.

"This is Ryan," he told Emerson over the phone. "You need to come home now. There was a tornado and it hit your house.

Then, before the weight of his words could truly sink in, Ryan added, "and it's pretty bad."

With a week to go on the mission trip, the Minnichs left for Indiana in the early morning hours of the 19th. They would drive straight through and return home by 9 p.m.

"You didn't get the full scope of it until daylight hit," Emerson said. "As soon as you walked through the front door all you could see was sky."

The Minnichs believe strongly that God kept them out of harm's way and looked out for their neighbors and family who were in the storm's path.

"We're very thankful," Lee said. "It is a strange feeling to think what it would have been like to really have been here."

The aftermath

After sliding through Blackstone the tornado – still and EF3 – crossed C.R. 54, then C.R. 9. It was plowing through a nearby cornfield when it concluded its rampage by lifting back into the sky. The circulation had finally broken down at 10:30 p.m.

The nightmare was over, yet just beginning.

The Helmuths were pulled from their broken bedroom by neighbors. The Johnsons had kicked their way out of the closet they huddled in and began looking for neighbors and thinking about where they were going to live. The Minnichs absorbed the news from four states away trying to visualize what had happened to the people they love and the possessions they cherish.

Meanwhile, Mayor Larry Thompson was at the command center. It would be nearly six hours until he returned home. Before first light the Red Cross and other aid organizations had already set up staging areas.

Emergency crews worked through the night clearing streets and looking for victims in the vast rubble trail the storm had cut.

"That was one long night," Thompson said. "Life was pretty simple here in Nappanee before that. It took us about 12 months to dig out from that tornado."

As the sun started to peak over the horizon, the town's once folksy backdrop was in shambles. Still, even with the storm clouds still seemingly hanging overhead, a spirit began to rise from the rubble.

"As bad as it looked," Thompson said, "we knew it could have been a lot worse."