Local crops destroyed by July Fourth storm

The severe thunderstorms that hit Hill County left many farmers in the area taking huge losses to their crops.

The up to 97 mph straight-line winds, flash rain and hail for many crops finished off an already terrible year.

"We probably lost about - it's hard to say - for sure 80 percent of it is gone," said local farmer Jon Stoner about his crops. " ... It just absolutely annihilated it. We've never seen anything like it."

Stoner said he has crop insurance, but it won't cover the loss he will take this year. He said it will probably cover about 40 percent of his losses.

His acres of mustard plants, a heavy stock able to withstand more than other crops, were "just shredded." His farm is 35 miles north of Havre, and the storm's microbursts hit his farm along with many others'. The loss of crops has also caused debris over his acres and he is still trying to figure out what to do about it.

There is also a problem with the chemical fallow. The storm did not affect just this year's crops.

"When you chemical fallow (a crop), you leave all your last year's residue on the top and it makes a really nice insulating material for your wheat," Stoner said. "That's gone. So we're going to be seeding our winter wheat into more of a black fallow situation where it won't have as much protection as last year's winter wheat."

He said they're going to harvest 20 to 30 percent of his crops this year, depending on how much he can salvage, but the storm has fairly ended the year.

"Nothing like this has come close," Stoner said. "It was for the record books. It's definitely been a challenging year."

The United States Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency has a Havre office that is still trying to find out how much damage the Saturday-night storm caused.

Les Rispens, the Hill County FSA director, said they're having some difficulty.

"We're still trying to get an assessment of it but it appears like it got almost the entire county," Rispens said. "There were three separate storms. One entered the county kind of at the northwestern corner and went right through Havre. Another one was about 15 to 20 miles north of Havre and another one was south along the county line with Chouteau County. It wasn't just a one-piece deal."

The spread of the storm blanketed much of Hill County and many farms were hit. Rispens said there is extensive damage to the winter wheat crops. He said they don't have an acreage number because the storm destroyed crops in pockets and it takes longer to fully analyze the damage.

He said there are three men north of Rudyard who lost 2,200 acres. North of Havre, about 20 miles, a farmer lost a couple thousand acres.

"Everybody I talk to has got some loss," Rispens said. "Guys will tell me, too, that one field got creamed and the field across the road is untouched."

Raymond Lipp is an insurance agent in Hingham with Hi-Line Insurance Agency and sells crop insurance.

"Basically, most farmers carry multi-peril crop insurance," Lipp said, " ... and then, farmers hail insurance on top of that to cover any excess value."

Lipp said generally the farmers will buy hail insurance if they're growing a better crop, but it is optional and more expensive.

"It's kind of a drought situation in parts of the county and, so, some guys didn't buy hail insurance because it wasn't much of a crop and then the hail storm hit a lot of different parts of Hill County," Lipp said. " ... It's not pretty."