Days after four tornadoes ripped through northern Minnesota, residents of Lake Hammal in Aitkin continue to clean up storm damage.

Trees are everywhere on the east side of the lake, where boat ramps have been shredded and roofs have partially peeled off.

“I’ve seen tornadoes before, but I’ve never been in one like this,” explains Steve Benoit. “It’s not right. It’s not right.”

In a lakeside neighborhood, Dawn Leen surveyed the damage to her family’s cabin, where they have spent the past twenty years.

Windows are shattered or boarded up – while just yards away the backyard is full of fallen trees and branches, a crumpled dock half submerged and their radio antenna bent in half.

“It’s so surreal,” says Leen. “You hear about it, but we’ve never been part of anything like this before, so when we come here it’s just devastation.”

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Along the lakeshore, residents are clearing debris as best they can.

Joyce Schultz – who says she took shelter in her bathtub when the storm came through – showed us where her screen house is buried under fallen timber.

In total she lost seven trees.

“I heard some kind of noise, but didn’t think anything of it,” Schultz recalled. “When you have storms, of course all these trees are hitting each other. Only this side of the lake got it, and my neighbor and I were the worst.”

“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” added Tom Walsh, who lives next door. “It starts to get dark, and then it starts to rain and it comes over. The wind, you hear it blowing, it was just amazing.”

Because of all that wind there was a lot of dirt in the water.

Residents say a pontoon was blown into the lake, along with logs and branches, and even materials from nearby homes.

The storm ripped through the area on Wednesday around 7 p.m.

Residents say their electricity went out first, then the sky quickly began to darken.

“It was a big, big funnel,” Benoit remembers. “All of a sudden the lake started spinning all over the place and the pontoon started flying around and up and down, and trees started bending, and I said to my wife, ‘We’re going into the basement.’”

Law enforcement officials are already warning residents in storm-damaged areas to be alert for scammers who may be trying to take advantage of people needing home repairs or outdoor cleaning.

For many in the Hammal Lake area, the next few days will be busy.

“This is a nightmare,” Schultz said. “I never expected this at all.”