| This small camp trailer behind a residence in Elmo was knocked on its side by severe winds from a small tornado. |
Elmo saw a bit of excitement on April 16 as a small tornado with strong winds moved through town. It seemed to just cut a path along three blocks of Main Street and about a block wide. Townspeople said the tornado touched down around 3 p.m. It blew shingles off buildings and knocked down the fence at the post office.
The post master said she saw bits and pieces of the library roof and facing blow off into the yard at the post office. She said she had called her boss earlier in the day to say they were having a problem with one of the sprinklers and then later she had to call back to say the fence at the post office had blown down. It wasn’t a good day she commented.
The strong winds blew in a window at the Mortensen residence and knocked down tree limbs.
One of the most spectacular events was described by Ruchelle Mortensen, “It picked up our basketball standard and it came to rest behind the church.” Mortensen thinks the flying basketball standard is what damaged the shingles on the church. The Mortensen home is kiddy korner to the LDS church building. The basketball standard traveled approximately 100 yards before coming to rest behind the church. Shingles on the church were damaged and the front corner showed the most significant shingle damage. Another spectacular event was a small camp trailer blown over behind a residence.
There were no reports of injuries during the severe weather.
Many shingles loosened and the metal facing around the library was ripped off and blown into the post office yard. One home had the metal roof sheets stripped off and blown around and into their back yard. Youngsters seemed to think the storm was quite an adventure as they ventured out after the winds had died down. Danielle Robinson and Jon Wright helped to clean limbs off the streets and from underneath trees.
Reba Hansen said, “We had just arrived home when it happened and Marvin went into the house and was blown around, but the grandbaby and I just sat in the truck and waited for it to be over.” Reba showed where her fence had been blown down in the pasture and a section of it had blown into the street. She also showed a miraculous event that took place on the day of the tornado. One of the ewes had quadruplets and the mother and babies survived the storm in fine fashion. After it was over the new lambs only seemed interested in getting some lunch.
Residents came through the tornado in typical Emery County fashion. They just looked at the cleanup that needed to be done and got right on it.
The weather remained windy and rainy throughout the week with strong winds, but Elmo was the hardest hit by the week’s storms.