HARRISON COUNTY, Ky. (FOX 56) – Thursday evening, the northern side of Harrison County was hit pretty hard by the severe storms and left with extensive damage, especially to one farm in Berry, Ky.
The Barnes family has owned their farm since the early 70s, and they say that in all their years of owning their land, they have never seen hail as big as they saw Thursday night.
Jessica Barnes said, “It sounded a lot like a machine gun was going off, especially since we have a metal roof on the house; it was really loud.”
Barnes said she started hearing pings on her bedroom window right after midnight, and it was so loud that she and her husband checked it out.
“So we got up and turned the back porch light on and that’s when we saw really large-sized hail,” Barnes said.
Barnes describes the hail as the size of baseballs.
“Typically it’s down to a quarter size is what we’ve had,” Barnes said. “But I’ve never seen anything like the baseball or tennis ball size before.”
Barnes assessed the damages the morning after the storm, starting with her truck.
She points to multiple dents on the hood of her truck, then her ‘2500’ badged knocked completely off.
On her other car, the windshield is cracked. “It busted up the rain visors, it’s not near as much as our neighbors had,” Barnes said.
She also found the side of her house panels chipped.
Then down on the farm where they have their tobacco greenhouses was more damage.
“See all the holes on the plastic,” Barnes said. “That will all have to be replaced eventually, we typically have two layers of plastic on each house and there’s fan that inflates the two layers that helps with insulation, it’s just not going to hold the air with all those holes.”
Barnes says her insurance won’t cover the punctured plastic.
“We have insurance on our greenhouses,” Barnes said. “It will only cover the frames, but the plastics are going to be all out of pockets costs for us.”
Barnes said she and her husband went to Western Kentucky to help with tornado disaster relief efforts, and compared to what they saw over there, the extent of their damage is minimal, and they are grateful.
Harrison County Judge Executive Alex Barnett said the phone has been non-stop ringing Friday. He is happy to report that there were no injuries reported.
Barnett spoke with Emergency Management and has no reports of people being taken to the hospital due to hail injuries, or major collisions, or down powered lines.