Trouble in the Night
Other areas in the U.S. got hit much worse than Dayton Mountain, but it was still a shock to see the ruin caused by one (?) tornado. We also got more rain than usual - nine inches of it in one day.
Instead of Laurelbrook's Spring Picnic at Falls Creek Falls State Park, all the students and many of the staff members went to the New Harmony Road area to see what could be done to help the folks out there.
I didn't go to the worse section as it turns out, but that section was bad enough.
- A little Church of Christ church building (22 members in the church) had part of the roof and part of its siding blown off, a pew thrown against another pew, half the ceiling missing, windows blown out, and guttering and drinking fountain blown towards the parking lot.
- Just down the road from this church, a forest of trees had been blown over on the road, and power and phone lines snaked across the road.
- Almost directly across from the church, a relatively small house had its roof and all ceiling trusses completely removed. Most of these people's possessions had been violently thrown against a farm fence nearby.
- In a creek area, all of the trees for quite a distance had had their tops removed about 30 feet from the ground. The tops had been twisted off, and the trunks looked like so many pegs in a pegboard.
- A 100-year old barn stood across the fields with nearly half its roof off and the boards holding up the sheet metal roof exposed to the weather.
- A farm lane near the demolished house was blocked by a huge tree. The house nearby was missing a good part of the roof.
Most of the morning I spent directing traffic so that Laurelbrook's backhoe could clear trees and other debris off the main state rural road. About the time we were nearly finished with the forest of trees on the road, a state roads official turned up with a huge piece of equipment and finished the job.
I finished, for now, my part in the cleanup at noon that Thursday, but the images remain in my memory.
Labels: tornado
posted by James @ 5:55 PM
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