Wadena sketches a future look

Among the many communities hit by the powerful spate of tornadoes on June 17, Wadena sustained the most damage. The twister blasted through the town's west side. Buildings were blown apart, the school was damaged and hundreds of trees were destroyed. Now a so-called "emergency" meeting of the Minnesota Design Team is trying to help Wadena residents design a new town.

The visit's Design Team co-leader Michael Lamb says the losses occurred on the west side of town, where the fairgrounds, pool, ice arena, community center and high school were located:

The fairly well preserved main street is very impressive. Essentially it wasn't touched by the tornado. But once you get to the west side of town, it's pretty incredible the amount of damage that was done.

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Wadena Deer Creek High School after the tornado

The Minnesota Design Team, or MDT, is group of architects, landscape architects and planners who have experience working with other towns. There are 300 members who volunteer to visit a few towns a year.

The program began in 1983 as a way to teach people to appreciate design in all forms. The most recent MDT visit was to Stewartville in October. The Wadena visit, today and Saturday, is considered an emergency visit, which normally happens after a town has experienced a devastating event. The MDT also has worked with Rushford, Roseau and St. Peter, and we wrote about the design team's work on the Iron Range in March.

Over two and a half days the team spends time with people in the town, and not just its leaders. The team wants to make sure that as many different people are involved, so towns have to show that churches, schools, seniors and farmers will participate.

Once people have provided their ideas of what they value and what they want preserved or changed, the MDT makes up 18 - 25 display boards with colored hand drawings. These the town gets to keep as guideposts toward a new look. Even if the town isn't redesigned completely, the conversation helps break down some barriers, according to Wadena councilman Don Niles.

Probably the main point of enthusiasm is the new opportunities to collaborate that were completely impossible before the tornado. This is not a disaster that anyone would wish for but now with the clean slate we have an incredible opportunity to look at green technologies...

The MDT volunteers its time, but the travel and materials usually run $4,000. Fewer cities have asked for designs over the last few years because they've had limited resources to make changes.