People of Gwinner Cleaning Up Storm Damage

High winds tear through parts of the region, leaving behind a path of destruction.

It hit fast and it struck hard.

People say the storm hit in full swing for about an hour and it was enough to leave its mark.

Under clear skies, a storm now seems far behind but crews are hard at work cleaning up the aftermath left in its wake.

“Three o’clock yesterday afternoon really did it so, it was over by four,” says Douglas Jansen.

He’s lived in Gwinner since the 1970s and says he hasn’t seen a storm like this ever.

Power lines are being put back together.

The National Weather Service suspects the lines were hit by 80 mile per hour winds Wednesday night.

“We were in the shop yesterday and we couldn’t even see that tree in the middle of the yard there,” Jansen says.

A town filled with farm equipment, now torn down, is quite the sight for these members of the community.

“A farm over there had two buildings over..neighbor over here lost one and of course the power lines down there about six to eight poles were busted off,” Jansen says.

Douglas says he has a lot to do in the next few days.  “You can see the grass is just literally flattened out where and I just mowed it on Sunday.”

Like most of the town, he’s waiting on hearing from insurance before he looks ahead.

“It hit the branches off that tree and hit them into that ditch there you know it has to blow them,” he says.

But no storm can rain on his parade.

“What are you gonna do? Take the weather as it comes there’s not much you can do about it.”