A monster tornado generating 198-mile-per-hour winds swept through the town of Spencer, South Dakota, the night of May 30 and destroyed nearly every building, including the Hanson-McCook County Regional Library. Deputy State Librarian Dorothy Liegl told American Libraries that afterwards only the foundation remained, "along with piles of soggy books and debris and a car that the storm deposited there."
Library Director Cherie Schroeder not only lost her library—she lost her mother, Irene Yost, 77, who lived in an apartment building across from the library and was one of six fatalities. Yost's upstairs neighbor Mildred Pugh, 93, was found dead, apparently blown from her apartment by the winds, under the library's bookmobile.
Schroeder's daughter Amy, 16, directed juvenile and adult inmates from state correctional facilities to search for books in the rubble. Liegl estimated that 70-75% of the 19,000-volume collection is gone. A temporary library facility will be set up in Spencer's fire hall in July.
Posted June 8, 1998.