High winds slam Clarendon

A blast of destruction hit Clarendon Sunday night, July 29, when a sudden storm swept through the city unexpectedly.

The Donley County Sheriff’s Office logged the first trouble at 8:12 p.m. when a 911 caller reported the first power outage associated with the storm, the harbinger of what would be a long night for emergency personnel and utility workers.

As winds picked up, driving heavy rain sideways, trees took the brunt of nature’s fury across the city and nearby rural areas. Massive tree limbs were broken off, several inches in diameter in some cases. Some trees were lost entirely, as was the case of an old cedar tree behind the Donley County Courthouse that was guessed to be at least 100 years old. The storm snapped the tree about eight feet off the ground, but it fortunately missed the historic building when it came down.

The greatest damage downtown was inflicted on the abandoned Antro Hotel at First and Kearney. The 1927 three-story hotel was already missing its roof and much of its interior structure from an aborted attempt to demolish the building about 30 years ago. When the straight-line north winds, measured at up to 84 miles per hour, hit the north face of the building, most of the upper two floors of that brick wall collapsed over into the interior of the structure, crashing all the way into the basement.

At the Sandell Drive-In, the storm flattened the marquee of that historic business and peeled the roof off of the concession stand structure, exposing the projection equipment to the elements.

Part of the front of the old Dairy Queen building was blown away; and across the city, residents suffered roof and other damage from the high winds.

Weather officials termed the storm a microburst, and two accidents occurred on US 287 due to the weather, one east of town and the other west of town.

Southwestern Electric Power Co. lines were knocked down and linemen worked throughout the night to restore electric service. The entire town was without power for about three hours with much of the city remaining darkened until after midnight and some people not getting power restored until 4 a.m. or later.

The storm was followed by another, less severe round of rain and wind after midnight. Altogether, the Enterprise gauge measured 0.55 inches of precipitation.

Clean-up will likely continue for several days as residents and local officials work to recover from the event.

For more storm photos, see this week’s Enterprise available online here: http://www.clarendonlive.com/?p=6507