Severe storm pounds Bloomfield

By MATT MILNER Courier staff writer

June 09, 2009 09:17 am

— BLOOMFIELD — Jared Moss was one of the most thankful people in Bloomfield on Monday morning.
His house, like many others in town, took damage from a severe storm that swept through at 10 p.m. Sunday. But his young son was safe. Moss’ girlfriend woke him up as the storm hit. They decided to move the baby from the crib that rests near a window.
“I went into my little boy’s room. Right after I got him up, hail broke the window. We had glass in the crib,” Moss said.
The hail was much larger than what most storms produce. Verified reports to the National Weather Service measured hailstones 1.75 inches in diameter. One stone punched through the plywood storm door at the Davis County Development Corp., office.
Bradley and Judy Rook walked to the Davis County Courthouse Monday morning to look at the damage. They knew the storm was bad, but they were still surprised to see almost every window that faces west blown out by hail and wind.
Repair crews were busy cutting plywood to fit the ornate window frames. It was 10 a.m. and a little less than half the work was done. They still hadn’t counted the total number of windows broken.
Pieces of blinds from inside the windows and shards of glass up to six inches long littered the courthouse lawn. A tree about 14 inches in diameter lay nearby, snapped off five feet above the ground by the winds.
The Rooks took shelter from the storm like many Davis County residents.
“We were in the basement, but we ended up with a flooded basement,” Bradley Rook said. “The outside was covered with hail.”
Nancy Clancy is the vice president of the Davis County Historical Society. The society owns the Dr. William Findley Home, which it operates as a museum. Clancy said the society was installing Plexiglas storm windows, but had not made it to the western side of the house.
The older windows just couldn’t take the pounding and shattered.
“If it was on the west side, it’s gone,” Clancy said.
Findley was a prominent doctor and surgeon who ran his practice out of the home. The museum includes his original equipment, some of which was damaged when the windows shattered. His surgical table was among the items impacted by the storm.
The ruins of a massive tree lay off to one side. It fell across the road and missed the houses in the area. It would have severely damaged the museum had it fallen the other direction.
Damage went far beyond the broken windows, fallen trees and flooded basements. The siding on many homes took a beating. Dents and broken pieces pockmarked many houses.
“My siding looks like a machine gun hit it,” said Greg Benge.
Benge works at Russ Mikels’ GM dealership on the north side of Bloomfield. The worst damage was concentrated on the south end of town, up to the town square. Hail on the north side was smaller, but it still hit Mikels hard.
Every car on the lot had scores of dents ranging from small dings to craters that looked like someone took a ball-peen hammer to the car. A few stones fell just right and shattered rear view mirrors.
Mikels worked the phones Monday morning. He had not gotten an insurance adjuster out to the dealership, but that was coming. Once the adjuster arrives the next step becomes possible.
“We will have a hail sale later,” he said.
Mikels’ comment was one of several that showed people had a dark sense of humor about the damage. More than one person remarked that Mother Nature had provided a stimulus package for area contractors.
There will be plenty of work for a while.
Matt Milner can be reached at (641) 683-5359 or via e-mail at mwmilner@mchsi.com

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For more photos of storm damage, go to www.ottumwa.com.

More photos of storm damage also on Page B6.