HAMPTON, IOWA – High winds early Sunday morning, August 7, 2011 caused damage to some property in Hampton.
“I was up and outside around 3:00 a.m. and the sound was that of one continuous rumble,” says Joel Orr of Hampton. “The winds I heard got up to sixty miles an hour.”
Joel and Jeremy Hines were just one of many that had to spend their Sunday cleaning up their yard, due to the winds breaking tree limbs, cutting trees in half and just a whole lot of debris everywhere.
There were trees that fell on power lines, causing some residents to be without electricity. Pat Palmer, probably better known as The Computer Guy, said, “We were without power for four hours. Not everyone was without, just where the wind did damage.” He also had large branches laying in his front yard.
There was damage all the way through the town of Hampton from west to east and from Sixth Street NE to Second Street SE.
People were out picking up brush, cutting full trees to be taken to the compost site and just trying to get as much cleaned up as possible. “All I heard this morning was chainsaws cutting wood,” said Palmer. The compost site was steadily busy with residents bringing in trailer and truck loads of brush. Orr was on his second trip, “I think this will be our last one.” One man at the compost site drove by and said, “This has got to be the most popular place in Hampton today.” The man at the gate, who takes names of people bringing in the loads said, “We usually keep track of how many loads come through, but it’s to many to keep track of. I’m on my tenth sheet of writing names down.”
There were caution strips tied up where power lines were down. Many were still tangled up in the trees that fell on them. Mid-American Energy was doing their best to make rounds and get this taken care of.
Driving around Hampton there were not only the trees and branches, but also mangled tents and trampolines, and unclaimed garbage cans and bikes lying around. There was some damage to some houses, but not as much as one would expect with a storm like the Hampton had.
At 4:00 a.m., police officers were out patroling the damage. They checked on Latimer and Chapin, saying that they didn’t see any damage to these towns. “It must have just ran through Hampton,” Orr said he talked to one of his friends on the outskirts of town. “They only got three tenths of an inch of rain and no wind.”
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