The storm on Wednesday evening came with wind, heavy rain and hail, causing widespread crop damage, stripping twigs and needles from cedar trees in the canyons. It also left piles of hail that remained southeast and southwest of Maxwell well into Thursday afternoon.
There were areas where the storm seemed to unleash the height of its fury. One of those was the home of Rob and Barbara Robinson in Boxelder Canyon southwest of Maxwell. Another site of heavy destruction was a farm of Mike Henry, southeast of North Platte.
Henry has a corn field on the east side of a driveway, a soybean field on the west. The corn was only a few days from dent stage, he said, and the storm left it as little more than stalks broken off just above the ears, The beans were left lying flat, much of the green color bleached out of them.
“They had 70 to 80 pods on each plant” and were expected to have an excellent yield, Henry said. “I’ve been hailed four times in my life and two times were back to back,” last year and this year.
Both of those events included these fields. Last year they were both in corn, and Henry chopped them for silage.
“I’ll probably do it again,” he said, and plant the corn field to a cover crop. He is not sure about the beans. He won’t do anything until the insurance adjuster pays a visit, which is done at least seven days after a storm on corn, and 10 days on soybeans.
“Beans will surprise you,” said Henry. They can be broken off early in the season and grow back to produce decent yields. “But this time it’s late, so we’ll see.”
When the storm hit about 2½ miles south of State Farm Road along Boxelder Canyon Road, “It was eerie,” said Barbara Robinson. The electricity went out about 7:30. At around 7:45 “it got calm,” fog settled in, “then the trees began to sway.”
Then it really hit and “I hollered, ‘Here comes the hail!’”
Stones of ice, up to golf ball size, tore through the air and pounded the hillsides covered with cedar trees, ripping twigs and needles from branches. It hit the house, too, and the cattle in the pasture.
“It was like a hurricane of hail. ... You could see the rain and the hail and it all swirled. ... We couldn’t hear to talk to each other inside the house. ... It was continuous, hard, driving hail. ... All you could smell was the cedar. ... You can’t fathom what it was like.”
Then, after about 40 minutes, “the fog lifted and it was calm again.”
The electricity was out until about 11 p.m. Monica Breinig, Maxwell village clerk, said the electricity was also out in the village for 3½ to 4 hours.
The next day cedar trees were left nearly as naked as they would be after a forest fire. Rob said he had mowed a small, sloped, grass hay field on Wednesday. The storm washed all the hay completely away.
“We’ll have to buy hay,” he said.
The lawn near the mobile home was pounded. The fiberglass covering over the porch was punctured in many places.
Barbara joked, “Now we have a Robinson Redneck sunroof.” But in a serious tone, she said, “This morning I was heartbroken” by the destruction.
There was a large hole in a window, siding had holes in it, nylon window screens were shredded, and Barbara’s perennial garden was pounded. A glass ornament lay smashed to pieces on the ground. Rob said the front window on their pickup was cracked, the side mirrors shattered.
He said they were glad that the cattle survived, especially the calves. They acted like they were sore the next morning, though, he said.
In the storm’s wake were signs of the river of water that had rushed down the canyon: There were the unmelted hail and debris still piled in a slithering line on each side of where the torrent had run. On Thursday afternoon, there was still hail mixed with cedar needles and twigs, piled three feet high against the fence of a corral near the house. Barbara said they had shoveled hail, like snow, from against the house.
On Thursday afternoon a small stream of water continued to run out of the canyon and down the Robinsons’ long, rocked driveway, while the couple contemplated what had taken place.
“I’m 55 years old and I’ve never experienced a storm like that,” Rob said. But then, even while contemplating their losses, he remarked that it wasn’t as bad as others have experienced. “I think of others, like hurricane victims in Texas,” adding, “Our house is standing and we have each other.”
The National Weather Service reported that Wednesday’s storm caused heavy rain from Arthur to northeast of O’Neill, and hail from Arthur to south of Maxwell. Wind speeds of 40 mph were reported north of Jensen Lake at Arthur, 60 mph northeast of Hershey, and 70 mph with gusts up to 80 mph on the west side of North Platte. The largest hail reported was 2¾ inches in diameter, seven miles east of Arthur.
In North Platte, intersections were flooded on Wednesday night, and tree leaves were plastered against house siding.
Source - https://www.nptelegraph.com
