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On the morning of September 7, 2004, Dale Thiel
and his wife, Judy, learned that one of the 30-stall barns at their
Thoroughbred
training center had literally been converted into a parking garage.
Hurricane Frances, which had already ripped through Florida and
Georgia, spawned tornadoes in Camden, South Carolina, moving
aside in its path. A gooseneck
horse trailer was no exception. The strong winds bursting through the area
simply lifted the heavy trailer up… and set it down on top of the barn.
“
I can’t conceive how the wind could lift a trailer in the air and set
it down perfectly on top of a barn roof with no apparent damage to the trailer,” commented
Dale.
At the beginning of the storm, a few exercise riders were horseback, and one
man was inside the barn’s apartment. All were able to escape the barn
uninjured.
“
We are so terribly fortunate that no people or horses were harmed,” Judy
said. Horses have temporarily been relocated from the damaged barn into the
other 30 stall barn that avoided damage.
Horse Lift
Not far from Thiel’s farm, Tom Sullivan, also of Camden,
watched the eye of a tornado sweep through the middle of the pasture
where his three horses were chewing their morning hay.
“
As I was standing there, our filly was lifted in the air,” he
said. “I watched her fly overhead.” The 2-year-old
foundation Quarter Horse had been moved approximately 200 yards
from her original position and laid on top of some broken pines
trees. Tom was worried the flight killed her, but when he finally
reached her, she was still breathing but unconscious.
“
It took between and 1 ½-2 hours of pinching her muzzle and
rubbing her to get her to come around, but she made it,” he
said.
“I call her my flying horse, Lucky Pegasus,” said Debbie Sullivan.
Lil’ Bit, a.k.a. “Pegasus,” shares her pasture with two older
horses, a Paint and a Quarter Horse.
“
Our other horses had been through Hurricane Hugo a few years ago and knew enough
to run from the eye of the storm, while the filly just stood there munching
her hay,” Tom said.
Editor’s Note:
The Insurance Information Institute, a trade group for the insurance
industry, indicates that nationwide insured losses from the four
hurricanes that struck the Southeast in 2004 could exceed $22
billion – easily equaling the costs of Hurricane Andrew
in 1992 in today’s dollars.
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