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On March 5, we were watching television as storms ripped through Iowa. Three of these supercells produced several tornadoes. Two supercells in southern Iowa produced three tornadoes. Meanwhile, a single long-track supercell produced multiple tornadoes from the southwest corner of Iowa all the way through central Iowa and into east central Iowa. With the damage and destruction, seven people died, two of them children.
Later that evening, in Wisconsin, severe thunderstorms were on the radar. It was very windy, and there was a lot of lightning. A house on the other side of Cambridge was struck, and the fire department raced over to put the fire out, but they couldn’t save it. We heard sirens from police cars zipping past our farm heading to downed power lines. It was hard to fall asleep that night with the wind howling and cracks of thunder. Bright flashes of lightning were repetitive.
The next morning, I received an announcement on my phone about a dairy farm in Stoughton that had been hit when a tornado touched down. It was the Amera farm. Buildings, the silo and the milking barn were destroyed.
I was finishing up chores when Duane came rushing up to me in the truck and told me I needed to see what had happened at Anna and Kevin’s farm just down the road. It was pretty obvious a tornado must have hit their farm too. The machinery shed was blown all over the yard, in the field and even across the road. There were two-by-fours stuck in the roof of the old dairy barn, obviously blasted into the steel roof.
Anna and Kevin were out of town for a young farmer event. As soon as we called them, they left to come home. We are very thankful they were not home during the storm; I can’t imagine watching steel siding and wood beams flying through the air. There was steel siding laying in their driveway. Pieces of splintered wood were scattered everywhere. And, there were nails scattered around that must have popped out when sheets of roofing were blown off.
Duane called our insurance agent, who arrived within a few hours. While we were waiting, we drove around the neighborhood to see if there was more damage to other farms and homes. The end of a barn was blown off, a tobacco shed was flattened, and many other roofs had shingles or steel missing. It was as if the tornado bopped up and down, twisting trees and blasting what it could pick up and whip around.
When our agent arrived, he looked at all of the debris, checked over the machinery in the shed and took a lot of photos. He led the discussion about the insurance policy we had; we didn’t have enough coverage.
With every improvement we made, we added more insurance. We put steel on the side of the barn and added insurance. But because this wasn’t a building we used daily, we didn’t have enough coverage to rebuild it, especially with the increasing costs of building supplies.
I would like to encourage everyone to look over their insurance policies and estimate what the cost would be to build new. Whether it is a barn or your home, if something were to happen, would your policy cover the cost to rebuild?
Our insurance agent mentioned he will contact many of his clients, farmers and homeowners, to reevaluate what houses, machinery and buildings are really worth. We all tend to be underinsured, and unfortunately, it is too late to add more coverage when the barn is in pieces scattered among the fields.
    Tina Hinchley, and her husband,  Duane, daughter Anna, milk 240 registered Holsteins with robots.  They also farm 2300 acres of crops near Cambridge, Wisconsin.  The Hinchley’s have been hosting farm tour for over 25 years.

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