Windows, siding, wheat victim to Sunday’s wild spring weather pattern

Ellsworth County residents continued Tuesday morning to remove broken limbs, leaves and other debris left behind after hail the size of golfballs and larger pounded much of the Ellsworth, Kanopolis and the Black Wolf areas.

Few escaped without damage.

In Ellsworth and Kanopolis, residents reported dented roofs and siding and broken windows from the Sunday blast. In several Black Wolf fields, farmers said their 2019 wheat crop may have been harvested by hail instead of combines.

“It was a weird storm,” said Cee Heller, who lives on Forest Drive in Ellsworth.

“It went from calm to blowing like crazy ... It was wicked stuff.”

Heller and her husband, Greg, said Greg’s truck was damaged, along with siding and the patio lights and cover. Perhaps the most unusual loss was koi from the couple’s seven-year-old fish pond. Six were dead and five were still missing Monday afternoon. The Hellers weren’t sure what happened.

“They were fine before the storm and dead after the storm,” Greg said.

He estimated the replacement cost of the koi at between $4,000 and $5,000.

Greg, who oversees the Fort Harker Guard House Museum, said he also had heard reports of damage to the Ellsworth County Historical Society properties at Kanopolis and Ellsworth.

Ellsworth police Chief Emil Halfhill reported damage to the police station and two patrol cars.

Judy Gebhardt of Kanopolis said she and her husband, Gerry, president of the Kanopolis City Council, were fortunate. But she had heard of damage to cars and homes.

“That’s probably the biggest hail I’ve ever seen here,” said Gebhardt, who still had some of the hail stones in her freezer Monday afternoon.

Timing is everything and for Kanopolis, clean up week couldn’t have come at a better time. It started Monday and continues through Monday, July 1. Gebhardt said this is the second year for the event.

“It’s going to be more of a cleanup than any of us realized,” she said.

Anyone in need of help should call the Kanopolis City Office, (785) 472-4732.

Pamela Hays was at a 4-H meeting near Black Wolf when the storm hit. She said the hail beat down on cars and trucks and shredded gardens and wheat fields. Once it was over, the ice on the warm ground turned into steam.

“It looked like fog. It was everywhere,” she said.

Local insurance agents reported heavy traffic Monday morning. Ellsworth’s Caleb Schultz described the damage as “widespread,” but said it was too early to know how much damage the county suffered.

“Right now we’re just trying to get the claims turned in,” he said.

The Hellers said their rain gauge contained .25-inch of rain after Sunday’s storm passed. However, the winds were so strong, Cee said it could have been more.

At Ampride, where farmers often write down the amount of rain they’ve received, the talk was about hail instead of moisture.

Dwight Elmore of the Ellsworth Coop said farmers told him Monday morning that fields with thinner stands of wheat took a worse beating than those with a better stand.

“But where it hit, it really did a number,” he said.

As to when Ellsworth County farmers might get into their fields to start wheat harvest — Elmore said he predicted several days ago that Monday was the day. Then came the weekend storm.

It will take three or four days of warm temperatures for the wheat to be ready, he said. Otherwise, he’s out of the prediction business, especially in a year with such unusual weather.

“We’re just going to do the best with what we have,” Elmore said.