DESCRIPTION OF ACCIDENT: Hangar collapsed onto aircraft during storm on June 06, 2014
DESCRIPTION OF DAMAGES: Fuselage crushed, tail crushed, all flight controls damaged, right tip tank torn off, wings punctured, all windows broken, upper engine cowling crushed, propeller has scratches and abrasion, spinner dented.
LOCATION OF AIRCRAFT: Canadian, TX Hemphill County Airport
REMARKS: Aircraft secured in a different hangar
Salvage Bid: http://www.avclaims.com/N8347D.htm
Photos: http://www.avclaims.com/n8347d_photos.htm
June 9, 2014
Storms cause $500K in damage: High winds destroy 5 hangars, plane near Canadian
A string of thunderstorms that drenched the parched Texas Panhandle over the weekend also left at least a half-million dollars of damage in its wake, Hemphill County Judge George Briant said Monday.
Straight-line winds estimated at 115 mph — equivalent to a category 2 tornado on the Enhanced Fujita Scale — destroyed five hangars and one airplane at Hemphill County Airport on Friday during the first salvo of storms, airport manager Bill Kendall said.
Damage was spread over a two-square-mile area near Canadian.
About 9:35 p.m., National Weather Service equipment recorded wind speeds between 80 and 100 miles per hour, with the exception of a corridor a few dozen feet wide that appeared to sustain damage from winds up to 115 mph, said Tabatha Seymore, NWS Amarillo observation program leader.
Kendall said the destroyed plane, a single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza, belonged to Briant. Another plane, a single-engine Cessna 172 Skyhawk, sustained minor damage, Briant said, along with three or four more hangars and a Suddenlink Communications center that provides services to the area.
A portable office building belonging to construction employees working on the airport runway was also destroyed, Kendall said. Snapped wooden utility poles, damaged light structures and damage to nearby outbuildings and homes were also reported in the area, Seymore
said.
The American Red Cross Disaster Action Team was sent Saturday to Hemphill County and identified a number of homes that sustained minor damage, said Steve Pair, executive director of the Red Cross’s Texas Panhandle chapters. Two homes were heavily damaged and Pair said
volunteers are currently
helping the families affected.
In other parts of the Texas Panhandle, meteorologists confirmed two tornadoes from Friday’s storms. The first touched down at 7:15 p.m. about 15 miles southeast of Waka in Ochiltree County and was on the ground for five minutes, NWS meteorologist Ed Andrade said. The second touched down at 7:52 p.m. about 10 miles northwest of Channing and was on the ground for eight minutes.
Both were classified as EF-0, the least destructive on the scale, and Seymore said no damage was attributed to either tornado.
Xcel Energy spokesman Wes Reeves said Monday several communities dealt with outages as storms passed through
“We were hit in Canadian Friday and again last night,” Reeves said. “The issues in Canadian were related to trees and tree limbs impacting power lines.”
Reeves said damage to a feeder line from a fallen tree in Canadian killed power to 300 customers Friday night. Power was restored to all customers by about 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Reeves said.
About 11:30 p.m. Friday, approximately 900 people in central Amarillo lost power because of a broken cross arm and downed lines, Reeves said. Power was restored to the area by 2:20 a.m. Saturday, he said.
Reeves said crews responded as far south as Dimmitt on Friday, where severe weather caused a 2½-hour power loss to 2,032 customers. On Sunday, 32 customers in Canadian lost power from 11:30 p.m. to 1:40 a.m. Monday after tree limbs damaged a line, he said.
Tree-trimming crews are going to Canadian this week to work on trouble spots before future storms hit, Reeves said. In all, about 5,000 people were affected by storm outages over the weekend, he said.
Rain totals in Amarillo reached 7.52 inches for the year, 0.15 of an inch above the yearly average and 0.03 of an inch higher than this time last year, NWS meteorologist Lance Goehring said. Residents in Hedley received the most rain this weekend with 3.96 inches, Goehring said, while Bootleg, in southwest Deaf Smith County, was a close second with 3.67 inches.
The storms also dropped hail throughout the area, Goehring said, with the largest in Amarillo measuring 1.75 inches and baseball-size stones of 2.75 inches reported Friday south of Bushland.
The next possibility for rain in Amarillo will be late Wednesday and then again Friday, Goehring said. High temperatures are expected to stay
in the 80s and 90s for the week.
Story and photo: http://amarillo.com
