Storms damage fields

By Bill Vander Weele

Sidney Herald
Published on Tuesday, July 7, 2009 3:35 PM MDT

The storms that have hit the area during the past week damaged some fields throughout the area.

Ben Larson, MSU Richland County Extension agent, heard the dramatic storm on June 30 badly damaged some sugar beet crops in the area including one south of Crane and others in the Rau School area.

“There’s probably 300-400 acres that were hailed severely,” Don Steinbeisser Jr., president of the Mon-Dak Beet Growers Association, said. The damage occurred south and east of Sidney.

In a storm that lasted less than a half hour, Sidney was pounded by winds up to 47 miles per hour and strong gusts of 67 miles per hour with pea to penny-size hail, according to the National Weather Service in Glasgow.

On Friday night, another storm hit the county.

“It did a tremendous amount of damage in the Mona area,” Richland County Commissioner Mark Rehbein said.

The storm destroyed half of County Road 146 (the Charlie Creek Road) and damaged many shoulders. One house got flooded very badly.

Then a four-mile wide hail storm over Highway 200 destroyed wheat and cereal hay crops in the southwestern part of Richland County on Sunday.

Larson said it’s tough this time of the year to give a description of the success of the variety of fields in Richland County.

“We have crops that look real good and some that look average,” Larson said. “They needed water so that was good.”

Steinbeisser added, “It looks pretty good.”

editor@sidneyherald.com

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