5/22/04
These are some pictures of Hallam, NE on 6/2/04, after 1 1/2 weeks of cleanup. I could not take many pictures since we tried to get through town and out of the way without stopping. Pictures cannot show the level of destruction We drove along the path of the tornado from Wilber to Hallam and saw many destroyed houses and hundreds of large tress twisted and snapped off near the ground.
Here are some pictures of a friend's house I helped clean up on May 25, 2004 after the tornadoes on May 22. Latest reports indicate a possible 2 1/2 mile wide tornado that was on the ground for 52 miles over 1-1/2 hours. This is the front of my friend Ken's house which faces West East of the town of Holland. The part of the roof that is still there was moved so had has water damage throughout. Ken is probably going to tear down the house and rebuild. Norris Power said there were just a few homes still without power. This was one of them. There were at least 5 power trucks working in the area.
The next three pictures are from the back. Ken's pickup is sitting where the garage was.
The next 2 pictures show his back yard. The only standing building is the horse barn where 4 horses survived unhurt. There were three other buildings to the left (West) of the horse barn. We spent most of the day cleaning up the debris from those buildings and his house roof.
This is Ken's neighbor across the road. The house was very new and valued at about $700,000 It will need to be torn down and rebuilt. We picked up a lot of debris from this house on Ken's land to the North of his house. It is hard to tell how much damage was done from these pictures. The back of the house was gone.
The is Hedgefield Lake about a mile from Ken's house. Most of the big old Oak trees were twisted and broke off.
This is another house by Ken's. The Mennonite group that was mentioned in today's (5/26/04) paper was helping at this house.
The was a draw that was wiped out. This was also in today's paper.
