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Michael Soldan
04-18-2004 15:23:58
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At approximately 8:10 this morning a wind shear or a twister crossed the bottom of our county and my farm was right in its path. There is total devestation, both machinery sheds are flat and laying across the machinery and tractors stored inside. My 584 has the hood and grill smashed in and the muffler smashed off, the M has the muffler and manifold smashed, an H has muffler and air breather smashed off, it seems anything sticking up on the tractors got it, I crawled under the debris but couldn't get a real good look, the building was pretty unstable. I believe there is damage to the M grill as well, the corn planter has broken seed boxes, a hopper wagon loaded with corn is on a 45 degree angle with the box twisted and dented in. I had two cars in one shed and I can't get to them to see what damage occured. My barn roof including sheeting and rafters is gone, there is sheets of tin for about a quarter mile in the direction of the storm, across my fields and the neighbours. My cattle were all safe down below and my tenants went to the basement until it was over, The house took it the best with only the loss of maybe 40 or 50 slates off of the roof and some ridge cap. Two farm in the area lost silos..I had never seen a silo snapped in half and I saw two today. I now have to get the debris off the site so I can get to the tractors and machinery and see how bad it is. I will be prying steel sheets off the trusses and then I guess I'll cut the trusses up with the chain saw and eventually free the trapped machinery..its going to take weeks to get everything cleaned up. I have several big trees snapped off and lying beside the house. I have insurance but I realize after the horrendous damage that I didn't have enough on the buildings. The machinery and tractors are well insured. I am going to have my Case-I-H dealer come out and winch my 584 onto the flat bed and take it to the shop for complete repair, then when I get the other tractors out I will do the same. I hope to be able to put the cattle out onto pasture soon and the secure the barn from them so we can start on it..it wasn't a good day but, noone was injured, the cattle are fine and everything is repairable, it isn't like a fire where nothing is left. There is some tough clean up too, a part of the barn roof rolled across the field and rolled itself up into a big ball of twisted steel and wood, not sure how to deal with that. Anyway I thought I would tell everyone and if you don't see me on here for a while you know what I'm doing..... Mike in Exeter Ontario
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