High winds cause damage in Lavaca County
Les Kaiser surveys the damage caused by high winds Wednesday night in Lavaca County. A secondary roof on a mobile home was peeled back by the winds. No one was home at the time.
Print- •
-
Share
- Share this item
-
Grab the link
Copy and paste the link:
- Blog about it
- Close
- •
-
Post a Comment
- •
Favorite- •
PETERSVILLE - Jane Alexander admits that the more than 100-year-old windmill in her yard has more sentimental value than actual worth. High winds Wednesday night bent the windmill tower down to the wooden cistern beside it.
"We used it until recently to water the cows, but haven't used it in a while," Alexander said. "It was at least 100 years old when we moved here 35 years ago."
Her husband, Rick Alexander, said he heard three distinct puffs.
"And that last one, I think is what got everything," he said.
The Alexanders live on Lone Tree Road off Farm-to-Market Road 966 in Lavaca County about seven miles west of Yoakum. They said the rain was blowing parallel to the ground and the high winds lasted 10 or 15 minutes. They recorded .8 of an inch of rain. Electric service was out for more than three hours. The couple experienced a tornado on the same site in 1991.
Wednesday's thunderstorm began about 6:30 p.m. and high winds damaged not only the Alexanders' windmill but also tore the roof off a barn. Debris from the barn was strewn several hundred yards into a nearby pasture. At least two trees were also downed by the high winds in that part of the county.
"It blew like crazy," she said. "We didn't realize until it was over that we had any damage."
On nearby Nelson Road, a mobile home belonging to Les and Vera Kaiser escaped serious damage but a secondary roof that covered the home was peeled away from the structure. The Kaisers' daughter and grandson, Annette and Cody Williams, live in the mobile home but were not home at the time.
"How it broke loose from that corner post that's welded on top and tore those posts that are in concrete out of the ground, I don't know," Les Kaiser said. One post with the concrete still attached at the bottom ended up in a pasture several hundred feet away. One-half inch of rain was in the gauge.
Additional damage was reported southwest of Shiner where "fierce winds took down two big barns," said Kathy Shepard, Lavaca County assistant emergency manager.
"The storm missed the areas where winds are recorded," said Cristy Mitchell, National Weather Service forecaster, "but at 6:25 p.m. a warning called for severe thunderstorms capable of producing winds of up to 60 miles per hour."
"It's a heck of a price to pay for a little bit of rain," Rick Alexander said.
