By Robert Wilson
The National Weather Service confirms an e-f1 tornado roared through the town of Irene Thursday night. An ef-1 has winds of 86 to 110 miles an hour. Irene is about 35 miles northeast of Yankton.
The city was also pelted with hail stones, some as big as a golf ball. Some resident have started cleaning up, while others have to wait awhile.
On Mark Peterson's farm south of Irene the storm ripped the roof off a machine shed. It did about $100,000 of damage. But this isn't the damage he's most concerned about.
About the same time this storm was churning west of Irene, Mark Peterson was on a golf course. As the sky's turned ominous and hail pelted the area, Mark rode out the nasty weather in a clubhouse. "I got a phone call from a storm spotter that i got a lot of damage to my farm."
As soon as the storm passed he tried to get home. But getting through Irene took a while as others were checking out storm damage as well. One of those was Hans Zink. He was inside a shed at a grain elevator, trying to protect his pick-up. "I'd say it was blowing maybe 70 miles an hour. And all of a sudden I saw the roof of one of the sheds come down."
By the time Mark got though town and back to his farm, others were already there offering to help. "Today we're just having insurance people and contractors deciding our next step."
The frustrating part is it's so wet in these fields, collecting the sheet metal right now would damage the crops.
Mark says thinking about all this...he didn't get a lot of sleep last night. but now he knows with the help of friends he'll be able to clean up and he'll be fine.
5 other buildings on the farm were also damaged in Thursday night's storms.
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