"It was like something out of 'Wizard of Oz'"
Candice Boutilier/Columbia Basin Herald<br> A tornado touched down near Moses Lake Wednesday night, destroying a barn. There were no injuries.
MOSES LAKE — A tornado touched down on Road P near Moses Lake, picking up a barn and slamming it to the ground Wednesday night.
Melissa Call saw it happen.
She said just 15 minutes prior to the destruction, her four horses were in the barn. The horses left the barn after her husband Richard Call began carrying hay to feed them in their pasture, Melissa Call said. As he was carrying the hay, that’s when he saw the tornado coming.
Richard Call dropped the hay to the ground and began running toward their home, she explained. The tornado lifted the hay about 50 feet in the air and passed near their home and a dog kennel and moved directly at the barn.
The barn was lifted 10 to 15 feet in the air and moved about 25 feet over before it was slammed to the ground, Call said.
“It was like something out of the ‘Wizard of Oz,’” she explained.
The tornado tore part of the roof of a grain silo and continued heading toward their neighbor’s home. Once it reached their neighbor’s home, it lifted a trampoline and dropped it onto a new car, Melissa Call said.
The entire ordeal lasted about 20 to 30 seconds, she said. No people or animals were injured.
Melissa Call said her landlord told her the barn was old and was on the list of historical buildings registered with the Grant County Historical Society.
The barn was used as shelter for the horses, she said. It contained very little else. For the past four years, a family of crows nested in the barn, but now the nest is gone.
“It’s kind of sad,” Melissa Call said.
She noticed an adult bird going to and from the barn looking for its baby crows.
Melissa Call said she spoke to the National Weather Service shortly after the tornado touched ground to see if they were aware of it. They advised it was not on their radar.
The emergency 9-1-1 call about the tornado was reported at about 6:30 p.m., said Kyle Foreman, information officer with Grant County Emergency Management.
“The caller reported a tornado picked up their horse barn, spun it around and put it back down,” he said. “That was the only report we received about anything like a tornado or a funnel cloud.”
The storm also caused damage to power poles near Ephrata and on Stratford Road near Moses Lake.
“They were caused by strong winds,” said Foreman.
Royal City was reported to be out of power, according to emergency service radio traffic.
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