Galva residents assessing damage from wind storm

May 08--Thursday was cleanup day in Galva.

Besides knocking dozens of railroad cars off tracks right outside of this town of approximately 870, Wednesday night's storm damaged about 65 Galva homes and structures, McPherson County Emergency Management Director Darren Frazier said.

"And I'm sure we're going to see a lot more," he said.

Frazier and a crew of volunteer firefighters, police and sheriff's officers, construction workers and other first responders spent Thursday morning surveying the damaged area to see the wind storm's full extent of the harm.

Frazier said the "straight line" wind came at approximately 6 p.m. Wednesday and passed through a 12-by-16-mile zone. The wind tore off siding and shingles, knocked down tree branches and power poles and totaled a number of sheds and others structures throughout the area, including Nancy Koehn's hay barn.

"I didn't know what to do, it hit so suddenly," she said.

"It won't be salvaged."

Besides her hay barn, she said the wind ripped fencing from around her above-ground pool and tore off tree branches. She was listening to the weather on her radio and watched the wind bring a wave of water from her pool into her backyard. In the meantime, her husband had just come home from work and waited for the wind to pass in his car, afraid he wouldn't be able to get inside his home safely. Much like many Galva residents, Koehn said she'd spend Thursday figuring out how to pick up the damage.

"It's discouraging. The more we're out there, the more damage that we'll see," she said.

The highest wind-speed Frazier has so far found recorded Wednesday night was 70 mph, although some in town claim speeds reached into the 90s. Frazier said the National Weather Service told him a microburst could have occurred just outside of Galva, where the wind derailed 33 Union Pacific rail cars carrying retail merchandise.

Sandra Stoppel saw the cars, which can weigh 20 to 30 tons each, pushed from the track while she was parked at the rail crossing waiting to go home. The pressure of the wind was so strong, she said, that it shattered her windshield. Stoppel said she didn't know what was happening and then had to drive an alternate way home because of the train with her broken window. Waiting for her at home was a large tree split in half in her front yard, which she spent Thursday morning helping her husband clear.

"I expected a storm (Wednesday night), but not that," she said.

The high wind speeds also blew the roof of a open-air rental RV carport, which collapsed completely mid-morning with the help of a construction crew. Richard Baldwin, CEO of Home Development, which owned the structure, said some of the RVs were able to be towed out unharmed while others received at least exterior damage. He said he was unsure of how many RVs were under the roof at the time of the storm.

"Our hopes is to get something back up there. Ninety mile-an-hour winds are uncommon, but we're going to make sure we're going to go back in there with something engineered to sustain that," Baldwin said.

Frazier said the damage from Wednesday night's wind storm was comparable to other similar weather events. However, it affected a much larger area than previous ones. American Red Cross volunteers, he said, were assisting with canteen services while officials are trying to calculate monetary damages to the town and McPherson County roads.

The only accident first-responders were called to Thursday night was a car crash caused by people gawking at damage, Frazier said. With no deaths or injuries resulting from the storm, Frazier said he's happy with how the town is responding.

"It could have been a lot worse," he said.

Less than 12 hours after the storm, roofers and contractors were already swarming neighborhoods offering services. More than 10 had come to Jeff Everett'sGalva home before 10:30 a.m. Thursday, he said.

"I tell them 'I don't want your card. I'll call you,'" he said. "I don't want to get scammed.'

Besides knocking in his garage and an outer fence, the wind tore off much of the paint on the siding of his home and garage. Everett, who does siding work himself, said the insurance company would come by to assess the damage in a day or two and then he would start making calls for repairs. He said some people would be upset about the damage, but it didn't faze him too much.

"You know what, that's why you have insurance. So you can cover it."

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