National Weather Service weighs in on thunderstorms and hail damage as east Idaho communities reel from wild weather
POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI) – The storm systems blowing through Eastern Idaho have left behind significant damage, including cracked windshields from hail the size of golf balls. The day after the massive lightning and thunderstorm hit communities, one local business is picking up the pieces, while the National Weather Service urges caution for the coming days.
Tim Axford, Warning Coordination Meteorologist for the National Weather Service said the activity from the last 36 hours is called monsoonal moisture, which comes from the southern United States.
“It brings in lots of showers, thunderstorms, hail, high winds, and in this case heavy rain,” Axford said. “That lightning provided a lot of entertainment for a lot of folks.”
While the lightning displays are fun to watch, Axford says they see injuries and fatalities every year from unsafe individuals going out in the storms. Hail can also be dangerous for property and people. At about 3 p.m. on September 17, hail at the INL accumulated to the point where crews had to plow the roads.
Lighting from the Sept. 17 storm, photo by Lisa Walton
“We saw hail the size of quarters all the way up to tennis balls were the largest,” Axford said. “We saw 2.5 inches, which can do a lot of damage and be unfortunate when it hits people and hurts them.”
The storms also brought in localized flooding in the Idaho Falls and Rexburg areas, with hundreds of BYU-I students sending in and posting videos of flooded roadsides and draining out of their apartment complexes. The Idaho State soccer game was delayed by a half hour yesterday for lightning warnings, and Axford said administrators need to use extreme caution and keep all athletes off the field when thunderstorms are nearby.
The wet weather isn’t coming to an end just yet, with forecasts showing additional showers and thunderstorms through September 19. The weather service has a flood watch out across eastern Idaho and a flood warning for the Ohio Fire area near Hailey.
Golf ball-sized hail from the Sept. 17 storm, photo sent in by a viewer
The Pocatello Parks and Recreation Department was ready for a large impact and many crews to have cleanup duty today, but director Anne Butler said thankfully, Gate City damage was minimal.
“We were expecting a little bit more wind with this storm and rain and normally that wreak some havoc in our park system on old trees and things like that,” she said. “We were pretty fortunate. Last night, we didn’t see the damage, that we typically do.”
In severe storm cases, Parks and Rec dispatches crews for cleaning up trees, hauling away debris, and using machinery on the trail systems. On the Parks and Rec website for the City of Pocatello, residents can use the service database to input their problem and officials will address it as immediately as possible.
One local business is suffering the worst case scenario after the thunderstorm. The owner of Extreme Rush, a fun zone and arcade in Pocatello that opened six months ago, was closing for the night when he heard a crashing noise and went to investigate.
Caught on the building’s security cameras, the owner watched as a pipe burst and gallons of water began flooding the business.
“We called a bunch of our people, everybody mobilized, came in and started pulling things out of the water and getting the rain and the Go-Karts,” said Brittany Nixon, Assistant Manager at Extreme Rush. “We’ve had some excellent help already. Everybody came in and rallied and we got the water out as fast as we could.”
Nixon said they turned off power to the building immediately and are hoping everything will function without water damage when they turn it back on. Crews worked through the night and were still on scene throughout the day on September 18.
“We’re hoping to reopen Wednesday, don’t forget about us or count us out,” she said. “We’re going to keep going.”
For the dedicated team at Extreme Rush, this was a devestating blow to their new business. A “crazy wild dream” to open the fun zone finally came to life six months ago, and Nixon said this isn’t the first time they’ve faced adversity and wondered if it was all worth it.
“Every single time it’s given us a chance to say, ‘are we going to keep going?’ and every time the community comes out and says they’ll help us keep going,” she said. “Everyone has rallied around us and helped us pull back when we were about to lose faith, and we’re going to keep going.”
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