ENDIANG, Alta. – A freak Friday the 13 hailstorm wiped out crops in central Alberta and created a mini ice fields one and a half metres deep by this town’s waste disposal site.
Jack Grams, of Endiang, was making the last round in his tractor cutting hay when the hailstorm hit.
The storm started in the southwest, hailed a little, swung over to the northwest, hailed a little more, swung back to the southeast, hailed a lot more, then moved to the southeast.
“It just kept going round and round,” said Grams, who lost almost 400 acres of crop to the storm.
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“This one just kept coming back,” said Grams whose granary was knocked over and a calf shed moved to the other side of a corral.
Jean Lane said there was still half a metre of hail piled on her back step when she came home the day after the storm.
Hail knocked holes in her home’s siding, broke windows in the camper and shredded trees and gardens.
“It was the best garden we had in years,” said Lane, who said there was 100 percent damage to 220 acres of crop. “It’s sad,” she said.
When Jim Wasdal drove home through the storm his truck made the first tracks through the walnut-sized hail that covered the road.
At the waste transfer site half way between Byemoor and Endiang, the hail was piled in dirty waves in the ditch creating a mini Columbia icefields on the Prairies.
“It was a freaky thing,” said Maureen Wasdal, who took pictures of the hail stones piled in the deep ditch.
Parts of south-central Saskatchewan, including Rockglen, were also hit by hail.
Damages had not been assessed as of press time.
