"The Tornado of April 7th.,2006"

It began around 1:30PM CST, the rain, that is, and shortly afterwards began storming and hailing. Storm warnings began coming over the radio, then tornado warnings! The cat had already ran under the bed. The dreaded sound of a frieght train began outside.

Suddenly, the noice of ice pelting and breaking glass began on one side of the house, and the winds howled. I got under the pc desk here in a middle room in the center of the house. 10 minutes later, the storm had blown over.

I went outside to access the damage. Right away I saw 2 to 3 inches of hail everywhere: the yard, the sidewalks, the street. 1,000s of tiny branches, and some larger ones covered the yard. The gutters were running over with quarter-size pellets of ice. On the neighbor's front steps it was piled up 10-12 inches!

I checked my car; no damage there, fortunately, but then ... I looked at the side of the house that was facing the storm. 8 windows were smashed, and the vinyl siding looked like The Army had used it for target practise. Fortunately here, no one was hurt, but even worst damage had happened around 30 miles from this town where it flattened several buildings and houses.

As it was, my house appeared to have had the worst damage on the street. One neighbor had their large picture window smashed, and another, an upstairs window and large flower pots destroyed. I called my insurance agent, and they said that due to the number of reports already in, for me to do temporary repairs and save all the bills and estimates of repair costs.

The first photo will show the amount of hail on the yard and road, and the 2nd. will show the damage to part of one side of the house.


Photo 1


Photo 2


The hail was so thick that 5 hours later, it still hadn't melted all off, and the temperature's been in the 65-70 degree range. A friend of mine that lives approx. 20 miles from here called and said hail had broken out the front windshield of his car. He said the ice was about twice the size of a golf ball.

I have personally lived around here off and on for 50 years. Some of my neighbors are in their 80s and lived here most, if not all, of their lives. This is the closest thing they've ever seen to a tornado striking the town.