Much needed rain brings unwelcome hail, winds
By BENJAMIN C. SHARP bensharp@journal-spectator.com

Staff Photo by Benjamin Sharp Wharton Fire Chief Bobby Barnett sets out a traffic cone at the intersection of Fulton Street and Lazy Lane to keep traffic away from a power line knocked down by high winds.

When it rained in Wharton this week, it poured.

Within half an hour, over an inch or rain was recorded Thursday evening by Andy Kirkland, the county's emergency management coordinator. That was enough to temporarily flood several area streets.

"That's a lot of water in a little bit of time," Kirkland said.

The rain didn't arrive solo, either. It brought strong winds and pea-sized hail. In downtown Wharton, hail bounced off the windows of cars, homes and businesses as the wind did its best to bend the flagpoles at the Wharton County Veterans Memorial on the courthouse lawn.

Trees throughout town were unable to withstand the blast, shedding limbs and tangling in power lines. Two lines were pulled down to street level, causing road closures at Fulton Street and at the Colorado River Bridge near Larry's Mexican Restaurant.

Wharton Fire Chief Bobby Barnett responded to both locations. At Fulton Street and Lazy Lane, Barnett set up traffic cones around a pool of water that was just inches away from a hot power line. Police Officer Tina Rader and Assistant Fire Chief Paul Shannon used their vehicles to block traffic at opposite ends of the street to prevent motorists from getting anywhere close to the line.

Similar steps had to be taken on the river bridge, with one lane of the southbound side of the bridge closed.

Employees with the city's public works department were called out to help remove the debris.

Dozens of city streets were littered with broken limbs following the storm's arrival. Despite the mess, Kirkland stressed that things could have been much worse. No major damage was reported and no one was injured.

"I was really, really pleased because it must have been a pretty good gust of wind to cause all those limbs to come down," he said.

As for the moisture, Kirkland recorded 1.17 inches of rainfall. That was a most welcome arrival, as the Wharton area has suffered from bone-dry conditions for weeks.

"We really needed that," Kirkland said.

It won't be enough, however, to pull the burn ban, he said. Before the storm, the county's mean, or average, Keetch-Byram Drought Index was over 600. Friday morning, it was 590.

A ban is automatically instituted whenever the mean index is 500 or greater.

It may be awhile before the area sees any more rain, too. Though there's a 40 percent chance of rain tonight and Sunday, the chances diminish through the rest of the week.

"We'll be back into our regular summer pattern; hot and dry," Kirkland said.