Storm damages Lynnville-Sully school

Strong storm winds struck Lynnville-Sully school early Tuesday afternoon, tearing the roof off one building and damaging two others.

Some eyewitnesses claimed a tornado was the culprit, though the National Weather Service was unable to confirm that claim.

Chyanne Huyser, director of the Diamond Trail Fitness Center, said the damage began about 12:40 p.m., destroying the roof of the middle school and elementary multi-purpose and lunch room. Several beams from that roof traveled about 50 feet, striking the fitness center, breaking windows in the center’s weight room and putting a small hole in the center’s wall and creating some water damage. Fortunately, no one was in the weight room at the time. In fact, no one was injured during the storm, despite the damage.

Most of the damage was to the middle school multi-purpose building, where several students were having lunch. Adam Thiessen, a Lynnville-Sully High School sophomore, said the storm happened very suddenly, and made a whole lot of noise.

“It was like a train just went by,” Thiessen said.

“Then there was a screeching and big pieces of metal scraping together,” added junior Reid Vos.

Thiessen said a set of doors, which are normally locked, swung open and a rush of air out of the building disturbed the heavy curtains separating the gym from the lunch room.

Next door, at the Learning Center, Melissa Doll had four middle school students in class when she noticed large pieces of metal flying by her window.

“I said, ‘Guys, we’ve got to get out of here,’ and we just had time to follow the tornado procedure,” she said.

Insurance agents were on hand a couple of hours after the storm passed, as well as employees of Pro-Line Welding, school board members and other residents making temporary repairs. Estimates of the damage were not available. The storm also caused some damage to the high school’s baseball field dugout as well.

John Jennings can be contacted at 792-3121 ext. 425 or via e-mail at jjennings@newtondailynews.com.