Minnehaha Academy head: 'I don't ask God why' blast happened

Two odd things happened while Donna Harris was interviewing a job candidate at Minnehaha Academy shortly after 10 a.m. on Aug. 2. She heard shouting in the hallway outside her second-floor office. That would be normal during the school year, but students were still on summer break.

Then, her assistant interrupted the interview. People were yelling about a gas leak, she told Harris, and everyone had to leave.

What followed was one of the most traumatic chapters in the private Christian school's 100-year-plus history: a massive explosion killed two beloved staffers and leveled the middle section of the academy's high school.

The scene in Harris's office played out like a movie, throwing three people off their feet and Harris across the room. Harris, the school's president, and several others were later diagnosed with concussions. Harris, known for and sometimes teased about her collection of high heels, was wearing shoes when the explosion started but not when she landed on the other side of the room.

She was likely a few feet or a few seconds from also being a fatality.

"I think about that a lot." she told MPR News in an interview at the school's other campus a few blocks south of the damaged high school. The blast blew Harris and the others away from the exit they intended to use and the area where receptionist Ruth Berg was killed. Berg's desk was in an outer office, just steps from where Harris's administrative assistant sits. Custodian John Carlson also died in the explosion.

"It seems as though, had the blast happened seconds after, perhaps we would have gone through that typical exit that we use for fire drills, which is the same exit Ruth was likely moving towards," she said. "It is likely that had the explosion a little later we could've been in that same spot. "It was so violent and so quick. Your brain can't really comprehend what's happening."

The section of building that collapsed included administrative offices on both floors, along with a cafeteria, classrooms, a reception area, and what's called the senior hallway.

With no shoes and no ability to exit through the door, Harris and the two others crawled through one of the circular windows in her second-floor office. All the windows had been blown out and she crawled onto a rooftop in her bare feet, trying to avoid shards of glass. Emergency responders rescued her and others from the roof. The starkest view of the damage, even today, is on the west side of the building, facing away from the Mississippi River. It conjures images of bombed out buildings in warzones.

Harris's office was on the east side and she didn't fully grasp what had happened until she was discharged from the hospital with two sprained ankles and returned to the scene that night. "It was unbelievable to see the whole middle section of the school gone." The night of the explosion, Harris attended a vigil and meeting for the school community while in a wheelchair.

In the two weeks since, she's graduated that chair and crutches and now walks, gingerly, with a brace on her right ankle. She and her senior leadership team now work as a group in an otherwise nondescript conference room in the academy's other school building. Room 249 is now considered a "war room." The table is littered with laptops and papers; the walls strewn with pages of to-do lists. Harris expects temporary buildings, or portables, to be installed outside the lower and middle school building in coming weeks to house her and others.

School leaders also are putting the finishing touches on a lease for a building to house the roughly 400 high school students and staff. Harris wouldn't say where that is, but confirmed that one location noted in media reports, the shuttered Brown College in Mendota Heights, is a viable option being considered.

Once the location of the temporary school is announced, teachers, support staff and others will have a little more than two weeks to move books, supplies, and materials there and make it ready for the school year. The lower and middle school will still start next week; the high school's opening was delayed to Sept. 5.

As for the existing building, it's unclear if any of it remains salvageable. Some sections of the building were not severely damaged beyond broken windows but Harris said engineers are still doing tests to determine of even those areas are still structurally sound. "On the exterior, it looks like some of the building might be salvageable but we wait for those experts who know this work better than I."

Even if an entire rebuild is necessary, she says the school is ready.

She wouldn't detail whether insurance would cover the entire cost of reconstruction but said the academy's board has put Minnehaha in good enough financial shape to address what's coming.

Online fundraisers also exist to help families of victims and at least one by alumni who wanted to donate directly to the school; the school isn't officially behind those. But like most schools, Minnehaha is always seeking donations and has a link on its site for people to donate directly.

In addition to arranging therapy dogs, moments of prayer, and counseling sessions for staff and students, which Harris has used, people in the Minnehaha community are talking more, and saying more.

At a recent gathering, a colleague approached Harris to tell her "I love you." The colleague added, "I always felt that about Ruth [Berg] and I never said that to her, and I want to make sure I say the things that will affirm people around me."

"We've been hugging a lot," she added. "I don't ask God why. I just say 'OK, this circumstance I faced, and (there are) others worse than me.' We're trusting God will show us the beauty we know can come out of this."

Even so, Harris still isn't getting a lot of sleep. But she keeps praying and keeps coming back to the Proverbs passage, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your path."

As the school readies for the new year and what is sure to be an emotional first day, they have at least one new colleague to work with. The man who was in Harris's office when the blast happened and later waited to be rescued out on a roof littered with debris got the job at the lower and middle campus.