Egan’s Hillside Cemetery suffered major tree damage from Friday’s microburst storm. Crews cleaned the roads off making them passable, but it will take many manpower hours to clear the downed trees amongst the cemetery plots. It is uncertain if any tombstones were damaged. Corn spills out this grain bin. The new bins were destroyed while the old elevator in the background was virtually untouched. Otter Tail crews were on site quickly to get the power restored by 6 p.m. The needed transformers came from Rapid City. An employee pulls part of the grain bin off the transformer. Enterprise photos by ML Headrick

Residents of Egan are cleaning up in the aftermath of a wild storm that blasted through town Friday night, uprooting trees, damaging homes and ripping the tops off of grain bins.

The storm hit at about 10 p.m. Friday night, with winds estimated up to 90 miles per hour. The southwest corner of Egan saw the worst damage; the high winds tore the tops off the grain bins on S.D. Highway 34 and sent chunks of metal into power lines and roofs.

The winds continued through the West First Street section of town, exited on the south end by Dan and Barb Warborgs and on into the cemetery, where toppled trees still covered a majority of the ground Monday. The power was knocked out in town after three of Otter Tail Power Company’s transformers were destroyed, but it was restored by Saturday evening.

Egan, Colman and Flandreau Fire Departments were all on scene Friday evening helping with clean up, traffic control due to the debris and general safety.



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HELP NEEDED FOR COMMUNITY CLEAN UP

The Citizens of Egan would like to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts to everyone who helped clean up our community after the high winds on Friday night.  We will continue to clean up for quite some time and have scheduled Community Clean Up Days for Friday, July 30 and Saturday, July 31, starting both days at 7 am.

If any one would again like to donate, we are in need of: large equipment, such as tractors, trailers, trucks, chainsaws and the manpower to operate them!! We also need to feed these workers and would appreciate any donations of  sandwich meat, cheese, chips, snacks, and cases of water.

Command Center will be the Egan Fire Hall. In case of inclement weather, we will work the following weekend.

For equipment donations or information contact:  Jim DeLay,  home 605-997-2579, cell 605-864-1558.  For food donations contact: Carol Larson 605-864-0372.





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Michelle Ten Eyck lives at the corner of West First Street and South Fred Street.

She and her husband Tom lost 10 trees and their house was significantly damaged. The storm sounded like a “freight train” to Ten Eyck, who was in the house with five of her six children when the high winds struck.

“When it came through, the house was shaking, stuff was flying everywhere,” she said.

Ten Eyck’s husband, Tom, was deployed in El Paso, Texas during the storm but quickly flew back Sunday to be with his family and assess damages. He estimates that the storm caused between $40,000 and $50,000 of damage “as a jumping off point.”

He said there are hundreds of holes in the siding of the house and the roof is in rough shape. The family is lucky the storm blew off the back door of the house, which de-pressurized the structure, he said.

“We were seconds from the house blowing off the foundation, in my opinion,” he said.

Herb Schock lives across the street from the Ten Eycks.

He lost an estimated 10 trees from his property. A jagged piece of grain bin was still jutting out from the roof of his garage Monday.

Schock and his wife Joyce sat inside their home as the storm ripped through their property. They don’t have a basement.

“It’s gotta be a tornado the way it whistled and everything,” Schock remembers thinking.

The storm, which is being called a microburst, also tore through the siding of Schock’s house. But he was thankful not to be hurt.

“We just gotta take the bad with the good,” he said. “We’re still both alive.”

Anna Rentschler, who lives just west of Egan with her husband Verlyn, said the couple was astonished by the storm’s sudden ferocity.

“It just hit with a roar and we didn’t have a whole lot of warning. I found out old people can still move fast if you have to,” she said, laughing.

The storm knocked a couple of doors off the house, broke windows and toppled six trees on the Rentschler property. Anna Rentschler said her living room was filled with glass and other debris after the door was blown open.

The Rentschlers quickly retreated to the basement once the storm kicked into high gear.

She said the couple’s family and friends were “lifesavers” in helping with clean up.

Moody County Emergency Manager Terry Albers, Egan Town Board Chairman Jim DeLay and others met at the city office Monday to discuss further cleanup efforts.

The city park and Hillside Cemetery were seen as top priorities, since both areas were littered with downed trees and other debris as of Monday. Albers told the group that Moody County Commissioners had agreed to send a cleanup crew of four pickups and two payloaders this weekend to further assist in those areas.

“The commissioners said, ‘yeah, we need to do this,’” Albers explained.

Albers is also working on getting chain saw crews from the South Dakota State Penitentiary.

Many Egan residents were still working on clean up their property. Most seemed thankful that nobody was injured, including Michelle Ten Eyck.

“Everything else can be fixed but I’m so thankful nobody got hurt,” she said.

She was also grateful for the help her family received from Moody County officials and Loiseau Construction employees who cleared the downed trees out of their yards.

“I just think it’s fantastic of Loiseau Construction and (the) county guys,” she said.

The Flandreau, Colman and Egan volunteer fire departments were also on the scene to assist with cleanup.

Rentschler also took the damage to her home with a grain of salt.

“The living room was a mess but nothing I can’t clean up,” she said. “We can’t complain.”

It has been a rough few days for Tom Ten Eyck, who hurriedly flew home to his damaged residence after the disaster only to discover another misfortune.

“The irony of all of it is the airline lost my luggage,” he said.