DONIPHAN — Brad Menke was watching the dime-sized hail fall and a darkening sky from the French doors of his Doniphan home when he heeded the warning from his wife, Demi.
She told him to head downstairs.
They were only there for a few minutes Tuesday afternoon. When they came back upstairs they saw the damage from a tornado that touched down in Doniphan at about 5 p.m.
A wooden shed at a neighbor’s property was destroyed. Part of it landed on top of the Menke house causing a hole in the roof.
“I opened up the upstairs door and there’s a 2-by-4 on the third step that came through the roof,” Menke said.
Debris from the shed was scattered about. Neighbors in the Hall County community were already out with wheelbarrows helping to clean up not even an hour later.
Menke said it will likely take a couple of weeks to get his house repaired.
“It could have been a lot worse. I’ll take this,” Menke said.
The toppled shed was the worst reported damage from the storm.
Hall County Emergency Manager Jon Rosenlund said that was the only building destroyed. No injuries were reported and no one was displaced from the tornado that hit the southern end of the community.
Rosenlund did not know the category of the tornado.
Numerous tornado warnings were issued across eastern Nebraska, with reports of large hail, winds and heavy rain.
The shed was in the backyard of the home owned by Ryan and Shannon Happold. Equipment stored in the shed could be seen buried beneath the rubble.
“There’s a tractor, Bobcat and 4-wheeler still under it,” said Ryan Happold, who was about to go out looking for a steer that got out of its fenced-in pen during the storm.
Happold was in his field about 3 miles away when the storm hit with what he said was two tornadoes.
“I was planting and it was clear. All of a sudden it changed quick. I got out of there,” he said.
When he got back home, Happold saw the damage that was done. He was more upset that the shed caused damage to other property.
“I was pretty shocked. It’s devastating to see it hitting other houses. I think it hit three or four other houses,” he said.
The National Weather Service in Hastings issued seven tornado warnings for the storm in south central Nebraska, including the one for Doniphan.
“It was a very busy few hours,” said Ryan Pfannkuch, a meteorologist with NWS in Hastings.
The tornado in Doniphan started about 2 miles south of town and moved up and dissipated. It wasn’t on the ground very long, Pfannkuch said.
He said the other story with the storm was the hail. Grand Island experienced pea-sized hail, while Hastings and the Marquette area had golf ball-sized hail.
Rain amount was variable. The Grand Island Airport reported .01 of an inch.
“The heaviest rain of all kind of fell from Doniphan up toward Marquette and on into Polk County. There is a stripe along there that had anywhere from 1 to 3 inches,” Pfannkuch said.
by Julie Blum (2018, May 1) The Grand Island Independent
