Golf ball-sized hail pelted some areas

Sunday’s rainfall was a welcome sight for many, but the weather, which included golf ball size hail in some areas, left a slew of homes and several businesses without power part of the day.
A tree had fallen on a power line in a swampy area west of Eastside School, according to Rod Prince, energy services director for the city of Cairo. “We couldn’t get a truck to it to  cut the tree off the line, so we had to wait on an excavator,” Prince says, explaining why the power was out for nearly three hours for approximately 200-300 customers.
The outage was first reported at 2:31 p.m., Sunday, and was restored by 5:25 p.m. The customers affected by the power outage were located mainly north of U.S. 84 and included Wal-Mart and its shopping center.
Grady EMC reports only scattered outages, with most taking place in the Thomas County area, according to the EMC’s Donnie Prince.
It was around 6:30 p.m. that the rain began to include hail in Cairo, some nearly golf ball sized. Luckily, that hail failed to damage young corn crops growing here, according to Grady County Cooperative Extension Agent Don Clark. “When I got out and looked, I didn’t see very much,” a relieved Clark reports.
While farmers were glad to see the rain, Clark says it fell in different amounts throughout the county, with northern Grady getting about two inches of rain, Whigham area getting about an inch-and-a-half, and southern Grady getting only a few-tenths of an inch of rain.
The agent says farmers are hoping for more rain to replenish the subsoil moisture. “Without subsoil moisture to draw from, and no rain, crops can experience drought more quickly,” Clark says. “If we could get three good showers of an inch-and-a-half to two inches, that could fill up ponds and recharge the subsoil moisture.”