Clinton News-Record, 1970-10-01, Page 11monuoilionnommummommomommomominiumllowimmommuommoommomoommunthommilimmuumnionounommimumunummumuumolimuiffoulimmiommunowimmolommillomumotimmiwimusommonmum
Clinton News-Record
.ONTARIO TH1).RSPAY, OCTO BE R .1, 1970 105th YFAR. NQ, 40 SECOND SECTION
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Looking throfrugh a gaping hole in the roof of the dairy barn on the farm of Alfred and Bert
Dykstra the tangled and shedded remains of the Dykstra's silo can be seen. It was a huge piece of
the silo that tore the hole in the barn roof.
Twisted steel and splintered boards were once the roof of the main barn on the of the roof missing and steel torn from the sides. One thousand chickens were
Dykstra brothers' farm. In the background the chicken barn can be seen with part sucked out through the roof.
Farms take brunt of storm
Everyone who went through
the violent storm that ripped
through the Clinton district on
Saturday afternoon has his own
story. Clinton News-Record
editor Keith Roulston tells what
like daring ' ' and
immediately after the storm.
BY KEITH ROULSTON
Anyone who lived along
North Street South when the
tornado passed through the
Clinton area on Saturday knew
at once there would be heavy
damage.
The sky blackened until it
looked more like late evening
than 3..:30 in the afternoon.
Then the rain and the wind hit,
slashing down through the trees,
hammering' windows like hail
stones and cutting visibility to a
few feet. The giant maples in our
front yard twisted and pitched.
They tugged at their roots like
dogs straining their leashes, but
they held.
At the height of the storm
the reporter in me began to
show. I got my camera out and
went out on the front porch to
try to get a picture of the storm,
but it was so dark I couldn't
even get a reading on my light
-ter.
and the dairy barn, the entire
roof had been lifted off the main
barn and deposited in bits and
pieces over several acres. Part of
it had apparently crushed a car
belonging to another brother,
Michael, who lived across -the
road.
Part of the roof of a chicken
barn was also gone, along with
about 1,000 three-week-old
baby chicks that were sucked
out of the building by the wind.
At Michael Dykstra's farm
across the road, the damage was
perhaps not so heavy but if
anything, it was more tragic.
One of the farm's three large
barns was now without a roof. It
had been filled with two-day-old
chicks. Now many were spread
over as wide an area as what was
once the roof. The rest of the
10,000 chicks were doomed to
die from drowning and cold.
It took little more than an
hour to get two rolls of film,
shooting constantly to record
the damage before darkness set
in or the workers cleaned up.
By the time I arrived back at
the house about 5 p.m. the
cleanup crews in town were
working to remove the last
remaining tree that blocked
North Street. It had been an
unbelievable hour.
recently-built barn was caved in when parts of the nearby silo fell. on the
of the
Workers begin the cleanup inside the dairy barn
Dykstra brothers' farm. A huge section of the roof
The storm barely let up when
the telephone rang and a
neighbour passed on the word
that two trees were down in the
middle of the street just in front
of her home. I went out to take
a picture., but it..was still, raining
so hard I could hardly focus the
camera and I retreated back into
the house to wait for the rain to
let up a little.
A few minutes later another
neighbour reported a wire down
at the corner of North and
Joseph and, after trying
unsuccessfully to contact the
PUC, I put on some old shoes
and a waterproof coat, grabbed
the camera and dashed to the
car. With Joseph and North both
blocked off it meant a trip
around the block, but an
attempt to come up Alma to
Mary and then up town was also
thwarted by another tree and
some• more wires blocking the
intersection of the two streets.
After another backtracking
around the block it was an
attempt to get through on
Huron Street. It too was blocked
but already, only about 10
minutes after the storm, the
PUC was busy clearing trees and
wires while the police directed
traffic around the scene.
I parked the car and reported
the downed trees and fallen
wires to Sargeant Leroy Desch.
We went in his car to investigate
then toured the rest of the town
to see what damage had resulted.
On Erie a tree was upturned by
the roots. At Rattenbury and
North some...branches were down
but not blocking the road. Most
of the serious damage seemed to
be confined to the west side of
town with only leaves and small
branches down on the east side.
Returning to Huron Street we
took a tour out into the country
at the west end and saw the
tremendous damage to the
Dykstra farms. We went back to
report the various trouble spots
to the PUC and Public Works
crews. I picked up my car and
headed to the office to pick up
another camera, flash and some
more film then headed for the
scene of the worst damage, the
Alfred and Bert Dykstra farm.
By the time I got there,
friends and neighbours had
already gathered. They got to
work at once doing what they
could. In the dairy barn they
started clearing away some of
the rubble caused when a huge
chunk of the silo came crashing
down through the roof into the
stable. They worked to repair
the milking system so the cows
could be milked that evening.
Besides the damage to the silo
The remains of the roof of a chicken barn on Michael Clykstra's farm look like a picture of an aircraft crash as they lie in a field
100 yards from the barn. The tangled steel and broken timbers were once the roof of a chicki died frorn the storm and the rain and cold that followed.
nearly new barn, on Michael Dykstrals fault, Ten thousand baby