Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1907 — IT WAS A BIG RAIN. [ARTICLE]

IT WAS A BIG RAIN.

I —Wednesday was a rainy day, par ■ excellence, and one long'to be remembered. Not that it will be, however, for if there is anything people soon forget it is the weather and always they come with tresh niemories ready to believe the weather they are just having beats anything they ever had before. There was a little more than three inches of rain fell during* the 24 hours which ended at six o’clock Wednesday evening, and that is a good deal of water to come iu one day, in this latitude. Down in the Canal Strip during the rainy season, it would be considered a rather dry day. T. e amount of Wednesday’s nrecipition, expressed in exact figures, was 307 incites. That amount has been exceeded in a like period only twice in the six years the U. S. Weather Bureau records have been kept here. On October 12, 1901 there was 3.65 inches of rain, and on May 11, 1905 tbere was 3.85 inches. That big May rain was a nine dais’ marvel at the time but who remembers it now! The most notable feature of yesterday’s 'abundant weather, was the -tremendous rate of the down-pour for about half an hour late in the afternoon. During that wet 30 minutes it must have been that fully half of all the day’s rainfall occured. And there was not only rain iu plenty, but thunder, lightning and hail. It in fact lacked only a big wind to make it an ail around cataslysmic storm. Not much damage has been reported, tho of course the lightning got busy over in the lightning belt south and southwest of town, where it always strikes when it strikes anyplace. Andrew Kahler’s barn, about four miles south, was struck and a gable and some rafters torn out. About sls will cover the and Continental In surance Company, will pay it, and not be busted, either. Granville Moody, up in Barkley, who also is most always said to be mixed up in some way with all the lightning storms that amount to anything, is reported to have had a cow killed by this one. The most extensive damage yet reported from the storm, however, was on the Edward Ranton farm, the former P. C. Wasson place, five miles southeast of town. Lightning struck the barn on the place about four P. M., and it was burned. In it was lost one horse, thought to have been killed or shocked by the lightning, also ten tons of hay, and a considerable quantity of corn and oats. Ten other horses were saved and also all of the wagons and harness. Two o f the farm hands were in the barn at the time and one of them was pretty badly shocked but is better today. The property was insured in J. C. Porter’s agency, but prob ably not enough to cover the loss. “Big as the storm was it was purely local in extent, and no further away than Fair Oaks, there was not a drop of rain. Even 7 or 8 miles noith there was very little.