Storm destroys hog barn, shed

Heavy damage

south of New Ulm

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Stanley Bastian was visiting friends in New Ulm last Sunday night when high winds hit his farm located a couple miles south of New Ulm.

Southerly winds blew down a hog-finishing barn and shed attached to a nearby barn on the farm Bastian shares with his sons, Tom and Jim.

"I'm glad I wasn't here with the wind hit," Bastian said. "I might have been outside trying to do something. This was the most wind damage we ever had since we moved here in 1958."

Bastian rented out the finishing barn. Thirty-four hogs in the structure escaped injury, but pieces of the building scattered over a large area. In addition, parts of a roof from a nearby shed were found in a wooded area north of the big barn.

Electrical wires to the barns and sheds were disconnected by the storm's force. The farm house was not damaged. The top of a silo on his brother's farm a 1/2 mile northeast was damaged.

A sprayer next to the finishing barn was smashed. But an unanchored bin, junked car, and a 1,500 -gallon tank half full of water near the barn received no damage. An antique plow and corn planter not far from the buildings that were leveled also remained untouched.

Bastian plans to replace the finishing barn with another type of building.

"I need a garage, although renting out the hog finishing barn was good income," he said.

Bastian compared the storm to the March 29, 1997, storm that spawned a large tornado that caused severe damage to Comfrey, rural Hanska and St. Peter.

Large hail from the 1997 storm put a couple holes in the roof of Bastian's house and tore out the end of his pole barn.

Beyond Bastian's damage, other farmland throughout Brown county received light to moderate wind and hail damage on Sunday, according to University of Minnesota Brown County Agriculture Extension Educator Wayne Schoper.

Sweet corn and field corn stands were knocked down or leaning in the southwest corner of the county and in Stark, Sigel, Home and Prairieville townships.

"Some of the corn will come back, some won't," Schoper said. "Some of the corn will be goose-necked."

Several cornfields near Comfrey received hail damage Tuesday night. Most of the fields should rebound, according to Schoper.

Rainfall amounts varied from a 1/2 inch to 4 inches close to the Minnesota River. Some areas in the western part of the county reported only 9/10 of an inch of rain in July.

For the dry areas, "the rain was certainly welcome, with the corn tasseling out," Schoper said.