ALPHA -- It has been said that a rolling stone gathers no moss, but no one ever seems to mention how it started rolling in the first place.
Rolling culverts, however, can be set in motion when the wind reaches more than 70 miles per hour, which is something Fred Reetz learned after Tuesday's storm.
A steel culvert 50 feet long and six feet in diameter had been sitting on his property, where it was to be used in a driveway. Now it sits a half mile away in a bean field, where it will stay until after harvest.
"It went east, turned, hit a ditch, bounced in the air, jumped the road and ditch and went across the field," Reetz said. "I'm just glad nobody was coming."
The high winds knocked down plenty of corn, and many of the trees in the area lost limbs or are down completely.
ADVERTISEMENT
"My son said he heard something weird," Reetz explained. "It was probably this thing whistling by."
Strangely enough, this isn't the first time the culvert has moved on its own. It was originally used in the vicinity of Brewster, where it washed up out of a township road.
After rolling through fields and ditches on Tuesday night, popping up into the air, landing hard and changing directions several times, there is minimal damage to the culvert itself.
"I do have to cut 15 feet off with a torch," Reetz said, walking through the culvert to check for damage. "Luckily my neighbor has a semi. We'll roll it up with cables and haul it home."
He laughed when he explained he was waiting to see if a new wind would come from the opposite direction and bring the wayward piece of steel back to its original spot.
There are two culverts that were blocked in position on his land before the storm hit -- one for Reetz and one for a neighbor.
"I told him that one is his," he laughed, pointing at the culvert in the middle of the field. "Mine stayed home."
"The damage to the corn crop is going to be bad," Reetz said. "The beans will come back some."
ADVERTISEMENT
Even the beans that gave way under the weight of the culvert are trying to stand back up, but the path the huge piece of steel traveled is still quite noticeable. The plants around it are standing tall, but tracking where the culvert rolled and bounced is easy to do.
"We'll leave it there until harvest," Reetz said. "It would cause more damage to move it."
He laughed when he explained that when the culvert does get moved, it will be buried right away.
Reetz and his family didn't get to see the sight of the flying, rolling culvert.
"Heck no," he said. "We were in the basement."
The family had been sitting down to supper when the wind picked up. The weather had just hit hard when Reetz decided they better move into the basement. By the time they came out it was dark, so the culvert's new resting place wasn't noticed until the following day.
