The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1912-07-25
DAMAGE BY HAIL
AND WATERSPOUTS
The Wheat Belt Suffers From
Storms of Saturday and
Sunday-Big spouts Over
on Butter Creek.

Quite severe storms of hail and
waterspouts visited different sections
Of Morrow county on Saturday and
Sunday afternoon. In the Eight Mile
section hail came down quite heavy.
and some slight damage to ripeniDg
grain is repored.. tho rot nearly so
bad as was first thought. The neigh
borhood about Eight Mile center and
to the esat of there was visited, the
hail striking different farmers more
or less severely. Beyond that we
und erstand that some damage was
done TO the crop on the j. S. Young
place and possibly a few others in
that vicinity, while over at Ed Hus-
ton s and at the F. P. Vaughn place
and at G. E. Jones' the damage was
perhaps the most severe. Upon the
latest reports we are able to get, we
can safely say that the real loss suf-
fered by any of these parties was
light and the hail was limited to
very small strip of country.
Over on Big Butter creek water
SPOUT did considerable damage on Sat-
urday evening, and first reports re-
ceived at Heppner reported loss of
life. The spout struck on the place
of F. f. Hufford and washed away
his house and other buildings and did
damage to the property that Mr.
Hufford saws could not be covered by
s5000 1t was reported that Mr.
Hufford perished in the water, but
this proved to be untrue He and the
other members of his family were in
the hay field at work at the time the
water came down and never got into
it at all. A lot of damage was done
70 the Jesse French place below Mr.
Huffords, much hay being DESTROYED.
Joe Hayes also suffered the loss OF q
large amount of hay; lot of his
wheat hay being washed away and his
alfalfa being covered with mud. He
thinks he has lost about 200 tons.
The house and barn on the Chapman
place was also taken off and much
damage done there. Perhaps $40 900
to SIS O0O worth of damsge was done
in this vicinity by the hail and water.
The water came dUwn verv heavy
on upper Hinton creek in the vicinity
of the Justus ranch, but the damage
done was slight.
A heavy electric storm visited
Heppner on SUNDAY afternoon but it
did not last long. Lightning is re-
ported to have struck on the Dutton
hill just west of town and there was
much jingling of telephones while the
storm was on. No damage resulted.
The rain and bail OF the past week
have had the effect of delaying hal
vest but the most Of the farmers are
now very busy in the fields and great |
lv appreciate the cool weather it be-
ing much better for men end horses.
From later reports received con-
cerning the storm of Sunday after
noon, it is learned that a great deal
of damage was done to crops and
heavy losses sustained by farmers of
the Lower Eight Mile section on
account of the heavy hail storm.
The storm struck about in the
afternoon at the head of Dry Fork and
on the Albert Lovgren place, and
taking a northeasterly course it cover
ed space of from one to four miles
and spent its force at the French Bur-
roughs place on Rhea creek.
The following people were the
heavy loosers: Albert Lovgren, Fred
Akers, Frank Barlow. Louis Brown,
Glen Farrens. Newt King, Ralph
Akers, H. R Smith, R. McElligott,
Fred Griffin. Mary A. Ball, Henry
Snouse, LsxtOn McMurray and Mat
Halvorsen.
Of course it is hard to estimate the
exact loss, but in the territory COW
cred by the course of the storm there
will be loss all the way from so 900
to loo 900 bushels, and it may easily
reach the latter figure.
From advices received, it is also
evident that we of this end of the
county do not realize what a severe
calamity has befallen the residents of
upper Big Butter creek and some of
ITS tributaries. Many of the ranchers
on this stream have lost all they had |
in houses. barns. stock and hay and |
the places are barren and destitute
1t is thought bv many who saw the
water go down, that there was more
water than visited Heppner at the
time of the calamity Of June IA, 1908.
That there was no loss Of life is