Karen Hamilton, Farm Bureau agent in Prescott, said when asked about what she had seen in the way of claims, “In my county, so far, I've had six poultry houses, but I've had umpteen barns. I don't really have a number on the barns, and that number keeps growing.”
Reed Camp, Farm Bureau Agent in Hope said he had also seen numerous claims from Winter Storm Fern damage: “Locally, I think we've had maybe now nine or ten claims with Farm Bureau with poultry houses collapsing. [With barns], we’ve probably had 32. However, there's been more than that [throughout the county].”
Camp said that structures in the northern part of Hempstead County seemed more likely to have buckled under the weight of the frozen precipitation that came down from Friday night to early Sunday morning. “I know there's several houses in the Bingen and McCaskill area. They were hit harder than the southern part of the county, which is a good thing, because there's a lot of poultry houses in southern Hempstead County.”
Hamilton said that there is little that can be done to lighten the loads buildings are having to bear as temperatures go up little by little, but she knew of one case in which the melting was sped up a little. “I had one farmer who has vents in his ceiling. And he opened the vents in his ceiling so that the heat from the temperature of the chicken house, because he had babies and it was 90 degrees, would help melt that. There's no insulation on the tin, on the roof, so he has vents so the heat rose up and helped melt off the tin as it accumulated.”
She advised that those working in structures still holding a quantity of frozen stuff be observant. “If there's any structural damage at all, it's probably not the best thing to be inside.”
Camp said farmers should inspect their property carefully for any bowing or sagging of structural materials. “Make sure each sheet of metal from one side to the other that itmatches up like it has been, because every roof with a lot of weight and snow, it's going to move. Every roof is going to move. But whenever the roof moves too much is when it falls.” His belief is that the sheer duration of the frozen material on roofs has been the culprit in local collapses thus far.
Camp also emphasized the importance of farmers to the economics of their communities. “Our farmers are the backbone of our county, and our school districts could not open the door if it wasn't for the taxes from poultry houses. Particularly Spring Hill and Blevins--they would not be able to turn the lights on if it wasn't for the farming and real estate taxes,” he said.
The trouble with Winter Fern-related damage being so widespread is that replacements and repairs of farming structures will take longer. “You only have so many people that are building, structures now, poultry houses. So yeah, they're going to be busy,” Camp said.
Above photo: A Yell County farming structure that collapsed under the weight of Winter Storm Fern precipitation, courtesy of Bobbie Powell and the University of Arkansas Department of Agriculture.
Below photo: A storage shed is shown to the left of the house after its roof collapsed just outside Hope, Arkansas Thursday afternoon.
