Sunday, May 11, 2008

After The Storm

This is the cotton picker that was pushed into the building by the apparent tornado. (click to enlarge photos) It was sitting over there beside the other one. A lot of the shop yard looks as though it's been swept clean, I guess the wind did that, but when the debris met the buildings, or trees, or a house, it just wrapped around it. There was pieces of the shop roof wrapped in the tops of trees (the ones left standing) and in the tops of power poles.
This is what's left of a storage shed in the shop yard. The employee who lives in a house next to this shed parked his truck there in case there was hail in the storm. I reckon hail damage would have been better than this.
This is what's left of the new ag plane hanger. There was an airplane tied down in there and the storm broke the tethers, gently? pushed it OUT of the hanger, and then proceeded to twist steel and metal hanger to look like this. The pilot went this afternoon, pulled the tin and other debris away from the path he'd need to take, then he taxied the plane out to the runway, and took off in it.
About 2 miles of power poles down. There were also trees down in the highway in several places but they took their pickups and pulled them out of the way.

Severe storms and those blasted tornadoes have seemed to taken a liking to Arkansas this Spring season. We dodged the bullet again last night but they didn't fare as well 10 miles south of us. Zach and I climbed under the dining room table when we saw our county was under a tornado warning until 9:15 pm last evening but all we had was a little wind, and a little hail, and rain, nothing nearly as bad as others we've had this Spring.

This morning our neighbor, who is also a farm manager for the same corporation my husband works for, came by to tell us that his farm headquarters took a hit. There are at least 2 miles (maybe more) of power lines and poles down, the new ag plane hanger they just built beside the farm shop is just a big pile of twisted metal and aluminum. The storm pushed a 6-r0w cotton picker about 25 feet into an old gin they used for storage, it broke the window out of a tractor, warped and tore the siding on the shop, uprooted trees, destroyed other storage sheds and buildings, tore part of the roof off, some of the siding, and some of the windows out of an employee house which sat next to the farm shop. Eleven irrigation pivots were toppled and twisted also.

James took Zach and I down to see the damage this afternoon.

At the farm my husband works at, down the road a few miles, there were 2 irrigation pivots damaged but so far that's the only damage they've found there.

10 comments:

Virginia Gal said...

Wow, I'm glad you guys made it out of that safely!

Andie Pandie said...

Yikes! We've got something blowning in today and it's a little concerning.

Anonymous said...

Oh, Brenda, those tornadoes are scary things! The damage they can do is unimaginable. I'm so glad to hear you came through unscathed, but I feel for the people who have lost property or more. I hope insurance will cover.

Donna said...

Thank GOD y'all are safe!!!! The storms looked awful over you're way!!! Hang in there!!hughugs

Sally said...

So glad y'all are safe, but sorry for all the damage around. We were 'supposed' to be in for bad weather last night; so far no rain just very heavy winds.

Anonymous said...

Glad to hear you are all alright, Brenda.

Crystal said...

God bless sweet. SO glad you didn't end up in all that. And only 10 miles away? My well wishs to all those there that were affected but I sure am glad to hear you weren't. You took some good pictures too.

Mary Lou said...

I'm Telling ya Brenda, Scared of small dark places or not, I would make James build you a Storm Cellar!! Equipped with lots of booze. For medicinal purposes ya know...;)

Ya'll stay safe now...ya hear?

Joan said...

I don't think crawling under a table would help you much. Maybe the bathroom or something like that. Do you have a crawl space under your house?

Glad you didn't get hit!!

bichonpawz said...

Wow is right! I'm relieved to hear that you are ok! That is some damage there in the pics!! Maybe hide in the bathtub with something to cover you? We used to have lots of tornadoes when I lived in Ohio and they are so scary!! Stay safe!!