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Hail Storm Devastates Area
July 09, 2003

This photo is evidence of the total devastation caused by hail
and wind to cornfields in northern Marshall County last Thursday. This
corn was nearly waist-high but now is just stubble. Winds clocked at
over 100 miles per hour hurled golf-ball size hail and caused damage
in about a 70-mile by 20-mile area.

A monster hail storm, accompanied by gale-force winds, turned a
year of promise into stubble in just 15 minutes late Thursday night.

Farmers in northern Marshall County and southeastern North
Dakota were victims of one of the most damaging hail storms in memory
last week. Cornfields, standing waist high, were reduced to stubble.
In some bean fields it was difficult to determine if a crop had even
been planted.

Damage from the hail was unusual in that it covered such a wide
area. Estimates were that farmers suffered crop damage in an area 70
miles long and 20 miles wide, ranging from north of Britton into
southeast North Dakota and over to Sisseton and Browns Valley (MN).

"The hail is by far the worst that I've seen," said Russ
Buisker, who farms in the Kidder area. "We had some agronomists up
Monday and looked at a whole bunch of crops, and it's just unreal that
it covers this big of an area. It's huge. And it's the worst that Dad
(Alfred Buisker) has ever seen. He's 89 years old and said he had
never seen anything like it.

"The wind was also probably the worst I've ever been in. And in
15 minutes it was over. Just like that."

"All the old guys say they've never seen anything like this,
especially this wide," added Larry Bosse, who farms land between
Kidder and Brampton (ND). "Normally we get a small streak here and
there of hail, but this time you can drive a long ways and see
damage."

Stan Thompson, manager of the Farm Services Agency in Britton,
traveled the route of the storm and agreed that the damage was
extensive. Based on last year's numbers he said there were about
227,000 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat, oats, and alfalfa planted in
the county this year. He estimated that about 30 percent of those
acres (70,000) were hit by the hail storm. Adding insult to injury is
the fact that farmers had the makings of a bumper crop.

"We've had excellent crops the last three or four years, but I
think they were even better this year," said Thompson. "Some of the
wheat fields had the potential to go 60 to 70 bushels. We're talking
about a big loss of income to the county."

Numbers of corn fields were totally wiped out, while it appears
that farmers will likely be able to salvage some of the soybeans.

"All the corn on the home place is gone," said Buisker, who was
talking on his cell phone Monday evening while clipping off damaged
alfalfa so that it would come back later this summer. "The corn is
five inches tall now and the growing point was cut off, so it's not
going to grow back. But most of our beans are salvageable. We're going
to get something out of those."

But according to Buisker, Kim Rasmussen, who farms about 4,000
acres just north of the state line, may not be as fortunate.

"He told me that he might combine 100 or 200 acres this fall.
Even his beans are just totally gone."

"From about four miles west of Brampton to Havana there's not a
thing left," said George Bishoff, who had farmed since 1950 and never
had a hail loss. "But my son, Dan, lost everything in this storm. We
spent about 40 hours just cleaning up the yard, and also found numbers
of small birds that had been killed."

According to Greg Gust, a meteorologist with the National
Weather Service in Grand Forks, ND, the storm damaged or destroyed
more than 100,000 acres of crops in North Dakota and featured
straight-line winds up to 110 miles per hour. The greatest damage in
North Dakota extends from near Oakes in Dickey County through the
Sargent County towns of Cogswell, Straubville, Brampton, and Havana.

"We farm about 3,000 acres between Kidder and Brampton and hail
hit pretty much all of it," noted Bosse. "The corn's all gone, and the
small grain is all gone. There's a chance that the later crop beans
might come back."

The John Fisher farm, located six miles north and three east of
Britton was also hit hard.

"We farm 32 quarters and 27 of them had hail damage," said
Clint Fisher, John's brother. "Some of the beans may come back, but
the hail took waist-high corn and mowed it right down. It looks like
you walked through with a sickle mower. The wheat fields were chest
high and all headed out. Now they're just sticks. And in some of the
bean fields you can't find evidence that beans were even planted.
You'd have to have a lawn mower out there to get that tight to the
ground."

Sam Smith had a similar story.

"My brother, Ralph, farms land from Kidder to Brampton, and he
figures he has 25-30 acres left out of 2500," said Smith. "It's just
total devastation. There's nothing left up there. The southern
two-thirds of Taylor Township is gone.

"I live 10 miles north and two east of Britton and the paint on
the north side of our house was peeled off," added Smith. "It looks
like it was sandblasted. The storm was the biggest I've ever seen, and
my Dad has never seen anything like it, either. Occasionally you have
one guy wiped out. But you don't see this."

Fisher estimated the hail to be golf ball sized, while Buisker
said hail stones ranged from the size of a big shooter marble to a
golf ball. Strong winds blowing that hail added to the damage.

Prairie Ag Research, located just east of Britton, recorded a
peak wind speed of 52.3 miles per hour. But estimates north of Britton
were in the 75 miles per hour plus range and Claire City reported
winds of 80 miles per hour.

Paul Shelquist of Farmer's Co-op Elevator in Havana said that a
couple of 30,000-bushel bins were blown down at the elevator, along
with the roofs of six silos and an overhead conveyor. He also said
there was some damage to a fertilizer bin.

"We also had a couple dozen or better trees blown down in
Havana, and some windows broken," said Shelquist. "I know of two
different guys that had hail damage to 10 quarters apiece, and power
was out here until 6 a.m. Friday morning."

A 50,000-bushel bin was destroyed at the Cenex Harvest States
Elevator in Claire City.

"The wind moved it off the slab and laid it down on the railroad
tracks," said elevator manager Gary Ostby. "The top part of it is
sitting out in a field. Dave Gleason also lost a barn, but otherwise
we were pretty lucky."

A pickup owned by Brian Bosse and parked under a carport was
pushed by the winds.

"It was pushed a good city block," said Larry Bosse. "It's like
somebody got in and drove it straight out."

The storm also hit the lakes area, but Roy Lake State Park
manager Dave Daberkow said a park full of campers rode out the storm
in pretty good shape.

"We had about a half dozen trees uprooted and a lot of branches
down. It really made a mess of things," said Daberkow. "There were
90-95 campers in the park, and we were lucky that there were no
personal injuries. Some tents were blown down, but the only damage we
had was when a branch fell on a camper and put a dent it."

There was other damage around the area but not to the degree of
that suffered in the northern part of the county. Some branches were
down in the Britton and Langford areas, and some minor hail damage was
reported south of Langford and east of Pierpont.

Numbers of trees were down in the Lake City and Clear Lake
areas, but little property damage was reported.

"We did have one boat on a trailer go end-over-end while it was
still on the trailer and end up in the driveway," said Jeff Olson of
Charlie's Resort. "And north of here some beans were hit hard. But
other than that we were lucky."

Jim Polkinghorn of Clear Lake Lodge said there were boat lifts
and boats tipped over and a half dozen docks twisted or flipped on
Clear Lake.

"We were pretty lucky on the north side, but the other parts of the
lake got clobbered a lot worse than we did," noted Polkinghorn.

Winds caused damage in the Veblen area, uprooting numbers of
trees and disrupting power in some areas for almost 12 hours. A tin
roof was blown off an out-building west of MCC Dairy near Veblen, and
the dairy also suffered damage.

"We lost the breezeway between the two barns," said MCC manager
Rick Millner. "The wind just blew the whole thing away. And we lost a
conveyor. Linn Vig clocked the winds at 87 miles per hour."

Bosse, also an avid pheasant hunter, feared that the hail took a
toll on young birds.

"If the pheasants were in the shetler belts they might have had
some kind of protection, but if they were out in the open I think
they're long gone," said Bosse. "Since the storm I haven't seen any
young ducks or pheasants like I did a week ago."

Insurance agents were busy handling claims this week.

Dennis Mattson of Britton Insurance said he had about 40 crop
claims and 17 property and vehicle claims as of Tuesday morning, and
he expected more to come in during the week. Ryan Likness of American
Family had about a dozen property claims and another 15-20 auto claims
from damage caused by hail and wind. Tom Farber of Farmer's Union
Insurance said he had over 40 claims and expected more the rest of the
week.

"The hail broke some windows and one house had two inches of
water on the first floor," said Farber. "Other than that it was more
crop than property damage at this point. The crop was looking so
great. This is a real blow."

Farmers are now considering whether to try and replant any of
the destroyed crops.

"I'm going to replant some sorghum in some of the corn because I
want to have something to chop for cattle feed," said Buisker. "And I
will probably plant a little hay millet on some of the other corn
ground. But for beans, sunflowers or corn, it's too late. If this had
happened the 20th of June it wouldn't be quite so bad. But it's just
too late."

Buisker said farmers will also have to play a waiting game on
some fields.

"In some of the fields it's hard to know what's going to happen.
There are corn fields where a lot of leaves are off, but if the stalk
is good and the growing point above ground, the plant will grow
leaves. According the the charts a 30 percent defoliation figures out
to be about a 20 percent loss right now, if the plant doesn't break
off or get diseases.

"What we need now is a late fall," added Buisker. "I think the
beans are going to surprise some people, but the hail is definitely
going to set them back. I just pray we don't get a frost on the first
of September."

"People around here are talking about re-planting," noted Bosse.
"It's a possibility but is kind of late. We also have a lot of places
under water, so it would be a spotty type of re-plant."

Although very frustrated by the costly storm, both Buisker and
Bosse know that things like this go with the territory.

"We'll do the best we can and keep plugging away," said Buisker.
"We are fortunate in that we've always carried hail insurance. But a
lot of guys don't have that insurance."

"This is just part of farming I guess," concluded Bosse. "The
best thing is that nobody really got hurt physically, and you do
expect some damage every once in a while. But this one was a big one."