South Dakota Tornadic Storm High Wind [Video] Garden Hit Bad

[BrianSkilton]

Here is my video I shot first. I uploaded it to youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zw5rtRlj4I
[Filming from my garage -- nobody try this, shouldn't have filmed]
[Toward middle of video the storm raised hell ]


Hey guys, I'm devastated again, garden took a total hit from this tornadic thunderstorm. Wind gusts were easily in the 85+mph range. I'm just lucky nobody was hurt, however part of a guy's roof blew off his garage 2 streets down. Branches and tree's down everywhere. No travel was advised, since power lines were down all over. Street was flooded near us, traffic was so backed up. As that is one of the roads that leads to I-90. After the storm I could hear chainsaws, roads were blocked by downed tree's. Some house near us got struck by lighting and started on fire. Worst thing yet, there is more coming! I don't know how we can take another one like that. My bro was over today, man he couldn't believe it. Man, what a rough season....

It dumped around 3.5 inches of rain in roughly 40 mins.
About the garden though, the tomatoes stems are cracked in various places. The wind would have taken the the cages but the tomatoes are big enough to hold them down. The leeks got leveled. Beans took a huge shot. I'm lucky with a few things though, the kale and all the cabbage and brassica things are fine believe it or not! I'm not sure what is going to make it and what is not, we shall see. . All that hardwork and then we get storms like this, 4 big storms 1 other just as bad as this one.

House struck by lighting 1 mile from us...
http://www.keloland.com/NewsDetail6162.cfm?Id=101771










that was a trampoline in the neighbors backyard, it is now tangled in the front yard.

More storm photos: http://keloland.com/NewsDetail6162.cfm?Id=101768

I've never seen anything so bad for a loong time...oh wait the last storm like this was a week ago?

[rainbowgardener]

Wow! Amazing video!

Actually your garden doesn't look as bad as I would have expected, for going through something like that ... it's worse for the trees than for the stuff lower to the ground.

We had one storm about like that a couple weeks ago... tornados very near us, we just had thunderstorm with severe winds and tons of rain.

[stella1751]

What a drag! I feel for you. I was living in Worthing, SD, which is just south of Sioux Falls, when Webster was leveled. East-River South Dakota gets some powerful storms. Will you be able to replant? Those tomatoes must be tough as nails.

When I was living in Cheyenne, WY, a hail storm stripped my tomatoes of all their leaves. It was too late to replant them, so I just left 'em where they were. Amazingly, they recovered and actually produced better than expected. Maybe you'll get lucky

[Liska]

OMG, that's so scary! You are one brave man for being out there recording that! So sorry to hear your garden got nailed again

[Gary350]

I will be more than glad to trade places with you. We get storms like that here in Tennessee almost every day in the spring, 3 months of that every year from about March to May. It is like a war zone here and I am getting tired of it. Your garden looks pretty good. I never seem to get much garden damage from wind the worse part is the garden turns into a river some of the plants struggle from too much water.

[hit or miss]

Hang in there! I'll bet the garden will still produce in the near future. Plants are amazingly resilient. Remember the old wives tale, if your tomatoes don't get hailed on go out and beat them!

[gixxerific]

Dude sorry to see you garden and yard in such a mess. Hopefully everything comes back around for you.

We get storms like that a lot not a few weeks though but on the other end of the spectrum it's has been dry and HOT. I had my neighbors (2 houses up) trampoline wrapped around my fence last year. Actually my fence saved my other neighbors pool from being destroyed, it was hanging on my fence and about 4 feet from hitting the pool.

Good luck

[BrianSkilton]

I just took a stroll through the neighborhood and took some pictures. Since I live in the country I went in two miles and took a few more photos. The thing here is we get thunderstorms what seems like 4 times a week during the summer...ugh. Couldn't believe one guy lost is whole garage.

[garden5]

Man, your pepper bed looks like it could use a bilge pump. Look at the bright side, though: at least no tree limbs or other debris landed on top of any garden-spots, totally flattening whatever was there.

Despite the puddles, the toms and pepps look like they will make it. If any of your toms have snapped off completely, just re-plant them in the ground, keep them watered, and you will have some late-season tomatoes from them.

[BrianSkilton]

Yeah, that's what I ended up doing with some of the tomato branches that broke off. I just stuck them in the dirt, thinking they will root. Overall I think the garden probably should have gotten more roughed up then it did, its just unbelievable that it faired as good as it did. Will see if it rebounds...

[gixxerific]

Yeah, that's what I ended up doing with some of the tomato branches that broke off. I just stuck them in the dirt, thinking they will root. Overall I think the garden probably should have gotten more roughed up then it did, its just unbelievable that it faired as good as it did. Will see if it rebounds...

I am going to say that they will grow. I planted, more like shoved in the ground a tomato that I broke the stem off of while trying to transplant month or so ago. It looked like hell for about a week, just yesterday I had to put stakes in the ground since it is growing so much. It's probably almost 2 feet tall and thick and hardy. So you should be alright there.

Good luck.

[BrianSkilton]

I will be more than glad to trade places with you. We get storms like that here in Tennessee almost every day in the spring, 3 months of that every year from about March to May. It is like a war zone here and I am getting tired of it. Your garden looks pretty good. I never seem to get much garden damage from wind the worse part is the garden turns into a river some of the plants struggle from too much water.

Gary, I don't think you would like the blizzards here in South Dakota . -30 degree temps, and 4 feet of snow every winter. Pretty rough here in the winter time. Also, all summer long, we have thunderstorms similar to this in terms of rain, but a little lighter on the wind. I have thought about moving often. Also, are spring is very windy, almost everyday of the spring we have winds 35-40mph. On may 22, we had 12 tornadoes in this State. I understand you get some pretty rough storms there as well as tornadoes, but this state is pretty bad as well. We only have about 90-120 day growing season, about June-Aug, maybe through the first week of Sept. I was lucky to get cold weather stuff out in April, because there is usually still snow on the ground.

[cynthia_h]

Wow. Terrible. I hope you and your neighbors are uninjured; the tree falling on the house looked particularly dangerous.

The Bay Area has one or two major storms per winter with winds >80 mph. Unbelievable, esp. because the architecture, infrastructure, etc. just aren't built to withstand such forces.

The homes in your photos def. look designed for winter cold; are there basements for refuge in such awful wind storms?

I hope your food garden survives; you've put a lot of yourself into it, esp. this year. ::fingers crossed for you::

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[applestar]

Brian, seeing your post had me out there tying up my tomatoes at 5:30 in the morning to beat the heat. Last year, I got lulled into thinking they were OK, then a tiny tornado touched down a few miles from my house -- practically unheard of in NJ.

Your plants musts be so much tougher than mine Hope they all make a come back for you. Be careful recording all that horrendous weather, I was afraid something huge was going to come hurtling into the camera (and YOU!) any minute.

[BrianSkilton]

Wow, a tornado was close to your house applestar? How did you tomatoes fair? That had to be a pretty scary thing. I had a lot of mine staked, but some of them got kind of up rooted. Hopefully they will be fine, I had a few nice tomatoes on many of the plants. I think I am going back out, and this time I will stake all the tomato plants a little better. I didn't tie the tomato rings this year either, which is why some of them blew off. I also thought some tree branches would come and smack me, I guess I am a bit of a nut .

[applestar]

They were thoroughly shaken around, some fell over, and most sagged into awful S-shapes that had to be coaxed back up. Luckily, none of the tomato plants actually broke, although some of the supports that seemed sturdy enough when dry (old sunflower stalks) got soggy, softened and became totally uselss. That's why TZ's new Tomato Support sticky is so timely.

It was a tiny tornado compared to the monsters you guys have out there, but bad enough for folks that were directly affected.

I'm like you, though. I'm fascinated by storms, and always open all the window coverings to watch for lightning. Neither of my kids are afraid of thunder, lightning, or dark for that matter, because they're used to sitting with me with all the lights turned off, peering out into the storm for a glimpse of lightning strikes. I had to REMIND myself when we had that tornado warning, NOT to sit by the window this time, and keep my children safe....

[jal_ut]

The elements on a rampage are amazing. Plants are very resilient and spring back surprisingly well. I hope it turns out OK for you.

[rootsy]

We took one like the video Wednesday night about 9:45 PM. I was looking out the window when it came through. Lost a 50 year old mulberry tree and the top out of a very old hickory... Did quite a bit of damage to the greenhouse. 2 miles to the East town received worse damage. Received 1 7/8 " of rain in a matter of 35 minutes... We were without power for a day and a half... Thank God for the generator...

Crops didn't get hurt much. Laid a bit of corn down, which is already goosenecked and standing back up. Laid some broccoli over and broke one zucchini plant. Had a bit of a wash out through some newly planted sweet corn that had not emerged yet and also through some beets and carrots... Nothing really compared to the tree damage. I was expecting a lot worse for the amount I have in the ground...

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[BrianSkilton]

Rootsy, that looks really bad. I hope no one was hurt. Sorry about your 50 year old tree. I suppose if we would have had some really old trees they would be down. I was amazed to see trees on top of houses and garages completely blown apart...that wind was fierce, easily 90+. Anyway, glad to hear your crops are doing okay. I was surprised mine were still in the ground as well. Storms with high winds do more damage to trees, but still are hard on gardens. We had around 3 inches of rain in 45minutes or so, so we had massive flooding as well. I couldn't have left my house after the storm, even if I wanted to. The road was completely submerged. Glad to hear you all are all right. Hopefully we don't get anything like that anytime soon.

[cherishedtiger]

Wow... watched the video several times! I cant believe how out of control the wind was! I am so glad you are all ok. Heres to hoping that the worst is over, and I hope your garden springs back to life!