Storm damages

The storm passed through Dubois County quickly Saturday evening, but its impact was felt long after it left.

As emergency responders and utility employees struggled to remove trees and debris from the roadways and power lines, some areas of the county remained without power until around 5 and 6 a.m.

In Jasper, the storm caused a gas line at Kimball Office on 15th Street to be torn from the roof. The gas flowed into the building but Jasper firefighters arrived on scene and ventilated the building before turning it over to the building maintenance personnel to repair.

Also at the facility, the wind took out a barrel storage room.

“It looks like we had some heavy wind that hit and took out a stairwell that damaged the gas line,” Fire Chief Kenny Hochgesang said. “the wind also caused the damage to the barrel storage building.”

There was no fire and no one was injured during the event.

The fire department responded with about 25 firefighters.

Also Saturday night, an Indiana State Trooper suffered a head injury while working to clear a tree from State Road 56 near County Road 575W in Pike County. He was taken to Memorial Hospital for treatment of the non-life threatening injury, according to Sgt. Todd Ringle.

The Dubois County Sheriff’s Department issued a statement Sunday afternoon thanking the county highway department, all the fire departments, utility workers, dispatchers and volunteers who assisted in the efforts to clean up in the wake of the storm.

“Several roadways were completely blocked but were able to be reopened in a timely manner due to all of the above-listed assistance,” said the release from the department.

Near Duff, Rauscher Dairy Farm sustained heavy damages to two block silos. One silo collapsed during the sustained heavy wind that preceded the storm while the second shifted along its base. Debris from the collapsing silo peppered a nearby work shed causing extensive damage. Winds also peeled roofing off a nearby barn.

Both silos are considered a total loss and crews were on scene today cleaning up the debris as Dan and Mark Rauscher met with the insurance adjustors.

The wind that hit the Rauscher farm and other areas may have been a bit stronger than the 60 mph gusts recorded at a weather spotter’s home in Ireland and at the Jasper Middle School. “We don’t have a record of anything higher but based on the damages, it had to be higher than that,” said Tammy Humbert, the director of Dubois County Emergency Management Agency. “We are estimated straight-line winds were between 65 and 70 mph in some areas.”

According to Dave Ruhe, operations manager at Dubois Rural Electric, about 4,500 customers in Dubois and Crawford counties lost power Saturday night. While most customers were only without power for an hour or so, some customers did not power back up until Sunday around 5 a.m.

Ruhe said power outages were caused by downed lines from trees and debris as well as downed utility poles hit by falling trees.

City and county employees are still cleaning up from the storm.

“We’re sending a crew out on each trash route to pick up the smaller stuff, and we’ve got a larger crew with a backhoe and a big dump to go out going out now to pick up storm damage,” Jasper Street Commissioner Jeff Theising said.

Theising asked that residents stack limbs neatly along the curb to assist crews in working quickly to clean up the city.

The City of Huntingburg will be picking up limbs all week but asked that residents contact the city at 812-683-2211 to schedule those pickups. Limbs should be collected and placed parallel to the curb to allow the city’s equipment to reach them. 

Jim O’Neal, WITZ AM/FM news director contributed to this report.