Salt Lake City Pushes Storm Cleanup

SALT LAKE CITY —  Cleanup crews swarmed through downtown Salt Lake City on Thursday as Utah’s capital dusted itself off from a rare tornado that hit the heart of the city Wednesday, killing one person, injuring scores of others and damaging some of the city’s most prominent landmarks.

“We’ve had crews up all night,” Mayor Deedee Corradini said Thursday morning, still marveling that a tornado with winds estimated at 113 mph to 157 mph could hit her city at the foot of the Wasatch Range, cut a three-mile swath through a crowded downtown and cause only one death. “We will have most of downtown open today. Be patient, but we’re open for business.”

Sections of two major downtown streets remained closed Thursday because of continuing danger from a construction crane that partly collapsed, and to permit workers to clean up the wreckage of a display tent. The crane collapsed atop a new assembly building being erected by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints near Temple Square. The tent was shredded by the winds one day before an outdoor retailer convention was to begin.

Mike Stever, Salt Lake City’s emergency program manager, said the city’s estimate of total property damage is $150 million, though he added that the number is in flux.

Nearly 1,000 construction workers are employed on the church building, but only two were injured in the storm, which struck at lunchtime when many were off-site, including the crane operator. The Outdoor Retailer Summer Market, the city’s biggest convention gathering, brings about 18,000 people here annually and will open today. Many of the exhibitors, however, lost their display materials in the tornado and will have to share space with other vendors indoors at the Salt Palace.

The lone fatality occurred at the outdoor part of the show, when Allen Crandy, 38, of Las Vegas was struck by a metal beam used to hold up the exhibition tent. Crandy, a father of three, was killed on his 13th wedding anniversary.

About a dozen of the injured were listed in serious or critical condition. Northeast of the central business district, in a residential neighborhood known as the Avenues, scores of homeowners continued to remove fallen trees and pick through the wreckage of more than 100 homes hard hit by the tornado, which swept through shortly before 1 p.m. Wednesday. About three dozen homes were declared uninhabitable.

The twister also destroyed several popular nightspots in the city’s West End and did major damage to the Delta Center--home to the NBA’s Utah Jazz and WNBA’s Utah Starzz. The arena, which lost about 10% of its roof and many windows, is expected to be closed for six weeks or more. Though the storm passed almost directly over Temple Square and the state Capitol, it did only minor damage to the centers of Utah’s religious and political life.