A Perry Tale: One year ago...

Was the crazy hailstorm in Eldora. Sunday, August 9, 2009 started as a normal day. Lucas and I were ready for church and Brent was getting ready. I hadn’t noticed the clouds changing and the tv was shut off. Brent’s mom called to say they had some strong winds and rain at the farm southwest of New Providence. The wind had knocked over their large gas grill and she was hoping we could help set it up right sometime, as Brent’s dad was in Canada.

As it got darker and darker outside, I mentioned to Brent that maybe we should wait until the storm passed so we didn’t get soaked going into church. He was tying his shoes and agreed. At 10:35am, we stood at the [south] picture window and watched the wind and heavy rain start. Soon we heard the ‘ping, ping, ping’ of hailstones on our deck. We walked to the north side of the house to look out our patio door. Our electricity blinked on and off. I remember holding Lucas and watching large limbs fly out of trees. When our wooden play set blew over and tore apart, we took off for the basement.

We were only in the basement a couple of minutes when we knew everything was over. We went back upstairs to find the ground covered in hailstones, much like a covering of snow. I took this picture right out our front door at 10:46am. The tree was snapped.

You couldn't even see the deck underneath this pile of various sizes of hail stones.

The hailstones were cold and the temperature warm, so it caused a haze all over.

The depth of hail.

Brent’s truck was parked in the driveway and it was destroyed.

Back seat full of glass and tree debris.

Force of hail on truck caused the interior pocket to break.

Our backyard was littered with limbs. The playset completely ruined.

Lucas' swing - the seat and tray both had huge chunks missing from hail.

The cornfield to our north was flat.

We went to the garage and Brent unlatched the garage door [no electricity for opener]. We stood in our garage and looked out for a bit while it was still raining. We could tell from neighbor’s homes that many had broken windows. Both of us had grabbed our cell phones. He called our friend Dave who was supposed to be leaving for Wisconsin for a business trip for two weeks. We were worried that he had already left and Maggie was home with four scared kids and a bunch of clean up. They were at church in Steamboat Rock and didn’t even know anything had happened. I called Trista to see if her family was okay. They were all safe, but definitely not okay. Every window on the north and west side of their house was shattered into their home. Bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, dining, living room. Everything was covered in glass and water.

Meanwhile, Brent was in the street visiting with neighbors. Our next door neighbor is in her 80s and doesn’t see well. He checked on her, she was shaken, but okay. Her daughter was on her way. Some of Lucas’ outside toys had blown three houses down the street.

West side of our house.

I remembered that a co-worker of mine was out of town on vacation and I was feeding their cat. We got in the tahoe to check on their house and it took us 20 minutes to get to there (8 blocks away) because of all the down power lines and trees in the street. I called her and said we had an awful storm and they probably needed to come home. I know she thought I was exaggerating. Then I took a picture on my phone and texted it to her. She called me back – her husband was going to rent a car and drive back.
Since we were already out, we wanted to check on Brent’s office south of town. We drove out and began to see the unfathomable damage to crops. Shredded, flattened, stripped. Nothing salvageable. Just less than a mile from his office the landscape changed – things were unharmed. What a relief! We headed back to town and went to church to see if anyone needed help getting home. It was a deserted place, but many cars left in the parking lot with broken windows.

Brent's test plot two miles north of his {unharmed} office. You can see how even the grass in the background is flattened.

Corn plot.

Bean plot.

Back in town, the sirens went off and everyone wondered what on earth could still be coming. Thankfully it was more rain, but nothing else. I remember Brent calling a friend and contractor, Matt, to tell him about the storm. He lives in Steamboat Rock and they were unharmed. Matt was already on his way to Waterloo with his trailer to buy as much plywood as he could find.

We called Brent’s mom to come to town to watch Lucas. We had no idea it would take her almost an hour to get there because of roads closed. Since we had no broken glass inside our house, we encouraged friends to bring their kids to our place for safe-keeping. I remember Trista and Rylee walking to our house because there were power lines in the driveway and too many trees in the street to get through.

Brent’s aunt and uncle, Susan and Mike, were on their way to Eldora to check on Brent’s grandma, as no one could get ahold of her with down lines. They brought tools and yard clean up supplies. Susan helped keep an eye on the kids as Connie got called to help with some clean up at their church.

We went back to Brent’s office to get the generator to keep our refrigerator and deep freezer cold. When we left town to the south, there were state troopers checking cars one at a time. We asked about re-entry and the officer said if we left, he wasn’t letting anyone in. We tried other ways out of town, but everything was blocked by police. We finally saw a trooper in town that we stopped to talk to. He said if we had an ID that said we were an Eldora resident, we could get in. We got to Brent's office, loaded the generator and then headed to one of Steve’s hog’s sites to get his truck {since Brent's was a loss}. When we got back to town from the west, they checked IDs and had traffic safety signs saying “Disaster area ahead.” It was freaky to think we lived in a disaster area.

Speed limit sign ripped apart.

Elementary school.

Courthouse.

American Legion building.

Most of the day was spent cleaning up and just being an awe of everything we saw. We found hailstones at 5pm that were still huge and hadn’t melted in 80 degrees!

We called my brother 30 minutes away and asked him to order pizzas from his Casey’s and bring them over. We only had electricity from the generator and no one was about to start cooking! There was a curfew put on the town that no cars would be allowed in after 8pm so we got our help out of there in time. Lucas went home with Aunt Susan and Uncle Mike. Daycare was closed due to no electricity and we had lots of clean up to do on Monday.

It was weird sitting in our house that night with such a dark neighborhood. We were the only one on our street with a generator so we were able to have a light on and watch the news. Our electricity was restored about 24 hours after the storm.

We spent the next days cleaning up at home, at church, at friend’s houses. We visited with our neighbors more in the days following the storm than we had in the first two years we lived in that house.

A neighbor.

Salvo's Fitness Center.

The media coverage a day or two after the storm was heavy, but shortly after that nothing was mentioned again. The intensity of the storm was reported to be six miles wide and 27 miles long, stretching from Webster County into the very western edge of Grundy County. There were millions of dollars in damage to personal property and crops.

A year later, the cleanup efforts continue. We are still on a waiting list for our contractor to put on new siding. Most homes were able to get new windows and roof before the winter hit. Some still have windows covered in plywood. There are lots of trees that were cut down after the storm but still many that need to be cut down. It is amazing to think that no one was killed. There were a few with injuries, but nothing life threatening. There were also weird things, like this glass globe that doesn't even have a scratch on it!