Wilson Creek city hall damaged by windstorm
A tree lies in a Wilson Creek street, victim of a fierce thunderstorm that rolled through the area Wednesday.
WILSON CREEK - A fast-moving thunderstorm packing high winds blew through town Wednesday night, toppling trees and damaging buildings.
Wind speeds were clocked at 41 miles per hour at Soap Lake, according to the National Weather Service office in Spokane.
"The roof was torn off the town hall," said Wilson Creek Mayor Katherine Behnet. "Our park is just devastated."
Behnet said she was sitting on her sun porch just before the storm, when her husband remarked the sky had suddenly turned very dark. Then the storm hit. "I have never seen anything remotely like what happened," Behnet said.
"The hail and rain just came - horizontally," she said.
The storm came and went very fast, she said. "This thing only lasted 15 minutes."
One house in her neighborhood lost its porch, she said, while other buildings around town sustained roof damage.
Wilson Creek residents rallied around to get a tarp on the city hall roof, she said. "Everybody pitched in to help with time and equipment," she said.
The park lost a number of its trees, she said, and cleanup was expected to begin after the city's insurance agent had a chance to evaluate the damage.