YUMA, Colo. — Residents in Yuma cleaned up Tuesday after hail the size of baseballs and golf balls pounded the community, with heavy construction equipment and snow shovels being used to clear ice that piled up knee-deep the night before.
Monday night's storm in Yuma shattered vehicle windshields, pounded the siding off buildings and broke many windows. lt also brought heavy rain to the city of about 3,500 people in northeast Colorado, stranding some cars in the streets.
Schools were closed in Yuma on Tuesday as the cleanup continued. Residents also were clearing fallen tree branches from the storm.
Owners of the Harvest Motel in Yuma said 16 of their windows were shattered during the storm.
"When [the storm] finally hit we didn’t expect it," Vincent Bukowski, the owner's son said. "It started breaking windows instantly when the hail hit, so everybody backed away from the windows. We didn’t expect it to hit this hard."
Like others, Bukowski said he never experienced something like this before. Yuma County Emergency Management said the town suffered far more damage on Monday night than it did during last summer's tornado.
The storm shredded the exteriors of homes and left hills of hail in its wake.
"It looks like winter around here," Stan Chaefer said. "I’ve lived here in Yuma for 62 years and this is the worst storm I’ve ever seen."
The hail was still about a half-foot deep Tuesday morning, and front-end loaders were used to move it, said Curtis Glenn, a trustee at Yuma Methodist Church, which had flooding and hail damage.
On Monday night, hailstones piled up in doorways, making it impossible to open them and creating dams that pushed rainwater into buildings, he said.
Stained-glass windows on the west side of the church, in the direct path of the storm, were shattered, allowing rain inside, and storm water was also forced into the building, Glenn said. Church members worked to move the altar, Bibles and hymnals away from the broken windows to a safer spot, he said.
Storms bring hail to northeast Colorado, metro area Monday
Glenn, an insurance claims adjuster, was alerted to rain and water entering the church shortly after he managed to drive his family from his daughter's dance recital in the nearby town of Eckley despite a shattered windshield and hail dents “big enough to put a fist in.”
Glenn said the combined sounds of the hail, rain and wind sounded like “a gun going off while you’re on a train.”
"It’s not something you ever want to see or ever want to see again,” he said of the storm, the worst he has seen in his years working in the insurance industry.
There were at least two reports of hail up to 4 inches in diameter, the size of softballs, near Yuma and the nearby town of Akron, according to the National Weather Service. Most of the hail reported in the area ranged from egg-sized to baseball and golf-ball-sized stones.
Yuma County Emergency Management said there were no major injuries reported after the storm. County officials said they would be out on Tuesday assessing the damage done.
They said the National Weather Service will also be out to assess the damage.
County officials said that Yuma residents can drop off any debris collected from their property at the City Shop located at 115 W. Railroad Ave. The city will only take trees, grass and leaves, other debris must be disposed of in the city's landfill.