I just looked at the picture of the storm damage on the front page of Tuesday’s edition of the Community Brief. The path of damage from Friday night’s storm affected a lot of places in the southern part of the county.
Watching out the windows, listening to the radio, and watching the TV weather report cautioned us of the coming storm. I didn’t lose power until about 6:30 p.m. when the rain came so hard I couldn’t see the machine shed behind our house. I knew it was time to head to the basement. i was at the bottom step when the phone rang and it was 2 calls...both from our girls asking if I was OK. I said I was OK, but didn’t know what damage was done outside. I had heard the weatherman forecast the storm/tornado was headed to the Industry area, but the girls didn’t know what had been hit.
The next morning phone calls told me of things flying through the air, shingles off, an old silo and part of the barn were down at Julie and Steve’s. Cathy and Steve had part of the roof blown off their “not very old” machine shed. Then stories of damages down by Colmar, Fandon, and a path eastward were being told.
I got a phone call from a young fella that had been working at Colmar after the storm hit to help get the debris off the railroad tracks. He said about 3 a.m. they had accomplished that and he said they all shut their equipment off and said, “we’ll be back in the daylight.” He had called to offer help here if we needed it.
The electricity here at home came back on about 9 p.m. with a loud blast from the TV that woke me up. I can’t imagine the amount of repair work that linemen at McDonough Power and Ameren found and fixed. They deserve so many thank yous.
The morning after the storm, I found only one lid off a bin, and a deep ditch in the driveway where the rain had washed a lot of gravel out and down the road. The article in the Community Brief asked people to report any damages to the county Emergency Services and Disaster Agency at [email protected]. However, I am not reporting one lid that was laying on the bin roof but just not where it was supposed to be. (Erik put it back on.)
I am reporting a funny story that son-in-law Steve reported to me. He said he had a cow that had twin calves, and one calf was red and one was black. He sent the picture over the phone to Leigh to show Jordan and Reagan. Almost seven year old Reagan’s reaction was to the twins’ picture, “But, Grandpa, they don’t match!” Sharon Chenoweth is a resident and farmer of McDonough County. Her column focuses on rural life and will be featured every other week in the Community News Brief Friday Edition.
