Review Staff Writer

Late Friday night, a severe storm hit Adrian and the surrounding area with fury. Shortly after 10:30 p.m., wind roared through Adrian, accompanied by a torrent of rain.  With estimates that the severest portion of the storm lingered for about five minutes before moving on, it left a path of destruction in its wake.

  Local fire chief, Ray Bullerman, watched the weather reports as the storm rolled in, but nothing indicated the strength of the storm.  “The news out of Sioux Falls said the storm was weakening as it moved through Rock county.” 

  The storm had ideas of its own as the wind hit with a vengeance.  People in town told of heading to the basement, others watched from their windows or the safety of garages.  As lightening brightened the sky, there did not appear to be a funnel cloud, but the destruction and debris seemed to tell another story.

In town, the number of trees uprooted, as well as large branches down, were almost too numerous to count.  Outside of town the destruction included roofs being torn off of sheds and barns, damage to bins and loss of buildings.  A home on the east side of town was hit by a tree that fell through the roof, into an empty bedroom.  Trees were down at the Adrian cemetery, blocking the west entrance, with branches littered across the cemetery.  An exit sign in the east-bound lane of I-90 near the Rushmore exit was twisted 180 degrees, facing the opposite direction and bent to the ground, with the heavy metal posts wrapped around it.  

Bullerman went out right after the storm to view the damage.  “I couldn’t believe it,” he said, echoing the thoughts of many who were busy with clean up that night and next day. “Thank goodness no one was hurt!”

  Randy and Lisa Strand watched the storm from the safety of their home and afterward were contacted about damage to a shed at the high school football field, and reports of equipment strewn in the street.  Coach Strand describes what he saw: “the storage shed looked like a bomb had hit it; the contents of the shed were scattered for some distance.”  Helping to clean up and retrieve the equipment were Jim Lutmer and the Loosbrock family.  “The next morning people marveled as to how the shed was gone but the equipment remained in place,” says Strand’s wife, Lisa, “that wasn’t the case – we spent a good portion of the night salvaging the equipment.”  There was something that struck Coach Strand as odd:  “there is a field south of the football field, with huge round bales of hay.  It wouldn’t be odd for a wind of that strength to roll the bales around, but some of the bales weren’t just rolled, they were upended.”

  The Nowotny family lost two huge trees, “our beautiful shade tree in our front yard is gone,” says Connie Nowotny, “and the tall evergreen in our backyard, too.  We lost siding.  The wind sucked up the soffits off of the house.  Our patio furniture was blown away.  What was weird was right next door the collapsible pool owned by our neighbors, as well as pool toys, were left untouched by the storm.”  Nowotny was one of many who noticed the same thing – some people’s homes and property were heavily damaged while neighboring structures and trees were unscathed.  

The debris from the storm, much of it trees and limbs, blocked Maine Avenue.  Bullerman called the volunteer fire crew early on Saturday, and they all went to work clearing up the mess.  Den Kanengieter brought in his equipment to assist in tree removal.  Bullerman said the most dangerous damage was to a propane tank located on rental property on the corner of Louisiana Avenue and 6th Street.  A tree fell over, damaging the house and garage, and causing a leak in the tank.  The tank was carefully removed then emptied off-site.  The owners, like so many others that day, spent the rest of the day making repairs and cleaning up debris.

  A drive through the middle of town, especially along 5th through 7th streets, from the west to east end of town, show the extent of damage to property and great loss of trees.  Strand, who had experienced the destructive tornado in Tracy in 1968, which claimed the lives of nine people, was among many grateful that there were no injuries from the storm.  When comparing that 1968 storm to Friday night’s storm, Strand comments, “the storms were different when they hit, but looking out afterward, it looked a lot like Tracy did, only not so severe.”  Many believe that it was more than straight-line winds that hit Adrian on Friday night.  Says Strand, “whatever it was, it was powerful.”   

Total damage estimates are not available at this time.  Insurance companies were called in by many residents and it will be some time before things are settled.  Buildings can be repaired or replaced.  Replacing trees, many decades old and a few more than a century old, will be difficult.  For all who talked about the storm and its aftermath, the greatest relief was that no one was injured.