Tornado in Eastern Idaho

Delwyn Stander

 

It was just before 4:00 PM on Monday February 14, 2000 (known as Valentine’s Day) when a big storm passed through. I was resting on my bed when it started. I did not think much about it until I heard what sounded to me like large hail on the window. I got up to see what had happened when I heard Cathy yell something to me. I was headed out of the bedroom by then. When I got to the kitchen, I looked out the window and was unbelieving when I saw the pivot on its side. I headed on downstairs to tell Deborah to turn the computer off when the power went off. Cathy told me what she had seen. She had seen some boards flying toward her when she had looked out the front window. She then ran down stairs. A little bit later I went outside to look because the wind and hail seemed to have calmed down. I saw that many of the shingles on the west side of our roof were blown off. I went to the back and saw them on the lawn. It was still raining hard so I came back inside the house.

We called some of the neighbors to see what had happened to them. Mother said that Dewey was outside working by the shed when the wind came through. He was able to see that it was a twister. She also said that the pivot at Lowell’s was also tipped over in addition to the one behind our house. Mother had seen things blowing by also.

Our neighbor had five trees blow over. One of them landed on her car. The trees had also pulled down the power lines to that neighbor and another neighbor.

my nephew's tree house blew down. another neighbor also had some shingles blow from their roof.

Around the community there were several pivot blown over and many trees uprooted. A trailer house was demolished as if it had exploded. Many roofs were damaged and in some cases garages or parts of houses were destroyed.

The Snake River High School Auditorium roof was damaged. Part of it was blown off.

It has taken a few days and some experts examining the damage for the so-called experts to admit that a tornado actually came through our community. They would not believe the witnesses.

I feel fortunate that we were all safe and that as far as I know, no one was killed by this. I think it is the signs of the times.

The wind also damaged the power delivery system so that we were without power at our house for about a 24-hour period. Some places were not off so long but others were off longer.

The Relief Society had been planning to work on preparedness this year. This should help convince those who think there is not much need for it here to change their minds. We got by for a day fine but if it were longer, it might have become more unpleasant.