Cimarron Kansas Windstorm, July 4th, 1987.
Back| On the morning of July 4th, 1987 (I am sure of
this date as my niece Emily Clark was born that day) we awoke to a
terrible mess in our front and backyard from one of the worst windstorms
I had ever seen, before or since. The winds were later reported at
100 MPH plus. Our home had been built in 1983 and we had planted
trees in the spring of 1983. The damage in our yard was mostly
from those trees. We could not believe how many limbs we had to
pick up and haul to the dump. As we headed to the dump with a trailer loaded with limbs we went on side streets to avoid going through downtown. As we went by my Uncle Bob and Aunt Pat Culver's house we saw them in the back yard. Bob was leaning on a rake resting. We stopped and were showing him our load of branches. He said, rather wearily, "Pete, come and look at this". Along the west side of his yard was a row of bushes that came up three foot or more. Once we were near them we could see what he was talking about. His complete backyard was filled level, nearly three foot with branches from trees to his north. They were from trees that had been planted for many years and the high winds had pruned them by around 50% or more. In his front yard, their wonderful Elm had been split right down the middle. We told Bob and Pat that we would empty our load at the dump and be back to help cleanup the limbs. Probably eight or more hours later the yard was pretty well clean. I have mixed emotions about taking that particular route that morning. Our kids missed popping fireworks that day as they had planned, but they learned a great lesson about helping others in need. They are still proud to this day for helping Bob and Pat, not to mention the God Fathers Pizza Bob and Pat treated to all those that helped. |