Goodland cleans up
By MIKE CORN
GOODLAND -- The caravan of dump trucks, pickups and anything else that could carry branches and debris felled by a vicious and fast-moving storm was virtually endless Tuesday.
Just five hours into the day Tuesday, and Margaret Russell at the Sherman County landfill had a running total of 105 loads of debris from the storm.
Most of the debris, she said, came from Goodland residents. There, individuals sought to clean up as city crews crawled the streets in caravans of equipment to pick up the tree branches and then haul them away.
Russell had tree branches at her home as well, but she had contacted a tree service for help. Tuesday's cleanup efforts came about as a result of a Monday storm that first formed just across the border in Nebraska.
The storm headed south, passing just to the east of St. Francis in the far northwest corner of the state and then followed Kansas Highway 27 south, ultimately reaching all the way down in to the Texas Panhandle.
Along the way, however, high winds and big hail -- tennis- to softball-size -- pelted homes, crops and livestock.
Just east of Goodland, corn fields were destroyed. Other than the green stalks that remained, little else could be recognized.
In some cases, the corn fields had been irrigated and showed promise of producing bumper yields this fall.
Winds peaked at 72 mph at Renner Field just south of the tree-limb dumping area, the 10th highest wind ever recorded at the airport. In addition, at least one tornado touched down north of Goodland.
Scott Mentzer, the meteorologist in charge of the Goodland National Weather Service bureau, said storm assessment crews were unable to determine a damage track, but law enforcement video confirmed a tornado had touched down.
He said it's not unusual to be unable to find damage tracks in open country.
As a result, the tornado north of Goodland was rated an EF-0, on the low end of the enhanced Fujita Scale. Storm damage southeast of Goodland was determined to be straight-line winds only.
During the storm, a textbook hook echo appeared on the radar screen. Forecasters already had issued a tornado warning, which prompted Sherman County officials to sound the sirens.
Tuesday, however, was a day of cleanup.
Jordan Bedore was among those picking up tree branches, measuring about 4 inches in diameter and coming from a walnut tree. He also was sweeping up leaves that littered a driveway in front of a residence on Goodland's main street, just north of the downtown area.
Hail and straight-line winds, he said, had been responsible for the carnage in the community.
"You drive around town, and it's pretty bad everywhere," he said.
At his house south of where he was cleaning up Tuesday afternoon, Bedore said hail was egg-size.
Mac Thompson, who lives a mile south of Goodland, was among those at the landfill dropping off tree branches.
He didn't have the hail at his residence, but he had the wind, and lost two trees as a result.
"It was kind of scary," he said of the storm. "It was the real deal."
The wind, he said, tossed a neighbor's trampoline up into the air above the area utility poles and "threw it an acre away."
This isn't the first time a storm with big hail swooped through Sherman County, he said.
Just two days ago, Mentzer confirmed, a similar storm formed in the St. Francis area and then headed southwest.
As it passed over Interstate 70 west of Goodland, passing motorists were hard hit by hail the size of a man's fist.
At least one woman, who had her windows knocked out, called 911, said Jason Showalter, a Sherman County Sheriff's deputy, who was recuperating from a foot injury.
At his residence just northeast of Goodland, he measured hail 4 inches in diameter, hail that damaged the patrol vehicle he had parked outside.
Strangely, he said, a "big swath of hail came through and then 45 minutes later, the storm came through."