TIMES
SOUTHERN
Vol. 13, No 27
ULSTER
3
Gospel of
Ralph
Williams
3
ONE DOLLAR
Leadership
Page 28
Page 14
SERVING HIGHLAND, MARLBOROUGH AND PLATTEKILL
Hail ravages Milton fruit crop
Destruction follows difficult winter
By MARK REYNOLDS
[email protected]
No one promised that farming would
be an easy life or that the financial
rewards would always be there at the
end of a season. This year, however, has
been a particularly difficult one and
nowhere has that been felt more acutely
than in Milton where a minutes-long hail
storm last Friday afternoon devastated
the fruit crop at Locust Grove Fruit
Farm. As if to add insult to injury, this
came on top of two unusual cold snaps,
which happened in February and again
in April, that spelled the death knell for
nectarines, peaches, apricots, plums and
cherries for 2016.
Owner Chip Kent said the storm
hit at 3:40 p.m., traveling southwest to
northeast and lasted for all of three
minutes but touched most of his 100acre farm.
“I got a recording of about a minute
and a half and it was going on before
that,” he said. “The hail was dime-sized
to quarter-sized and some were even
bigger than that I think. I never saw
anything like that in my life, never,
ever.” He said his father remembers a
storm of similar devastation that hit in
1946.
Kent
said
the
Shawangunk
Mountains to the west “usually busts
up the storms.” He explained that for
hail to materialize “you have to bring
the moisture up to the cold and bring
it back down. By taking out the bottom
of a storm it really doesn’t have that
ability.” He said the lowest level of a
developing storm provides the needed
distance that results in hail ice but the
nearby mountains often interrupt that
phenomena.
JULY 6 - 12, 2016
Towing
issue still
unresolved
in Lloyd
By MARK REYNOLDS
[email protected]
A grape vine at Locust Grove Fruit Farm in Milton reveals the extent of the damage they
sustained from a hail storm last Friday afternoon.
“If you reduce that, it doesn’t make
ice [and] you just have a lot of wind,”
he said. “This came from the southwest
and came through this way [across his
farm] and mixed with wind from the
east. I’m not saying it was a tornado
but it was damn close to it. You saw
everything going this way and then all
of a sudden the hail came and it came
back from the other way; I’ve never seen
it before.”
Kent said nearby Milton Turnpike,
Clarke’s Lane and Old Indian Road were
lightly strafed but his farm was ground
zero.
“When it got down here, all hell broke
loose,” he said.
Kent pointed to a vine with grapes
that had been hit, looking as if they had
been sliced open by a sharp knife.
Continued on page 3
WWW.SOUTHERNULSTERTIMES.COM
The Lloyd Town Board has still not
brought froward a draft proposal of
recommendations to add to the town’s
towing law despite public charges
of unfairness from tow operators and
promises from Councilmen Kevin
Brennie and Mike Guerriero that they
would present recommendations to the
full board to resolve the matter.
At the last Town Board meeting,
attorney Bob Haskins spoke about a
letter the town received from attorney
Christopher Coleman who represents
Joseph DiBlanca. He said within that
letter there is language that threatens
Brennie and Guerriero with “defamation
of Mr. DiBlanca with regard to the prior
discussions that have been had over the
tow list.”
Haskins said this development is
“rather disturbing.” He said Coleman
“did not specify any specific defamatory
statements that were made. So its really
hard to tell what he is talking about
with regard to how Mr. DiBlanca has
supposedly been defamed.” Haskins
said he has not previously heard any
defamatory statements made by either
councilmen alleging that DiBlanca “has
done anything criminal or illegal in any
fashion.”
Haskins said DiBlanca was seeking a
Continued on page 4