HAMLET OF EAST EDEN, N.Y. (WKBW) — Several farms in the Southtowns are now crippled as storms ripped through crops, destroying barns and farming equipment on Wednesday.
7 News' Pheben Kassahun headed out to the Hamlet of East Eden on Thursday as members of the community there shared what lies ahead as they pick up the pieces of their home and their livelihood.
"We have a lot of really big, old maple trees. During the storm, a lot of the big branches fell down. We actually have one of the trees that is up front, fully get roots out of the ground. So that one was completely toppled over," Emily Enterline said.
Her grandparents' land sustained tree damage, but thankfully their home is almost unscathed compared to their neighbors.
"We actually got really lucky. The trees probably protected a lot from the debris that was flying around. We got lucky that nothing actually landed on the house," Enterline said. "The powerline did get ripped down."
The Sion family's day started with no power and tree branches and leaves scattered across their family home's front yard. Cutting trees down and clearing scrap metal from barns is what the rest of their day consisted of.
However, Enterline said this farm community has a love so deep, that even a twister cannot not break.
"A lot of our neighbors are suffering quite a bit more than we are. The farm next door actually had one of their full barns collapse. They had a lot of cows get out. They had some cows injured," Enterline explained.
Catherine Mammoser, whose farm Mammoser Farms, was destroyed by a tornado said, "Walking up here and seeing all the help from people you haven't seen in a long time that are here helping, lifting a hand and helping support. There's people that we don't even know here. It's definitely very supportive and having that in this environment really helps uplift our spirits."
This isn't the first time they'll have to rebuild, they lost barns during Snowvember in 2014.
"We've bounced back before, this time's gonna be more difficult, but we'll make it happen somehow," said David Mammoser.
NOTE: Mammoser Farms is one entire entity. There is one farm located on Hardt Road in the Town of Eden, and another located on East Eden Road, in the Hamlet of East Eden. Both are run by the same family, just different operators.
Some houses on East Eden Road are considered condemned, including someone's entire barn: gutted.
However, help is on the way.
Cornell Cooperative Farm Business Management Specialist Katelyn Walley told Kassahun over Zoom, "It can be tough to see generations of family farms and experiencing loss of decades of your work and time, and blood sweat and tears. What I found in times like this is the agricultural community really comes together to support each other to make sure that everybody is safe and fed, whether you're a person or an animal and the crops are doing okay."
Walley said farms need to collect information like photos, written documentation and estimated financial value and report it to them or any other agriculture agency to receive monetary assistance.
Walley added, "Any farm that had some form of a loss due to a weather event and that could be an impact on livestock, crops that are growing, crops that haven't been harvested yet, all the way up to those that have been harvested, barns, facilities. Even all the way down to losing power and losing products because of that powerline, so milk that had to be dumped, any type of refrigerated goods that had to be discarded."
Tough losses for all involved, but many say that will not stop them from building back stronger.
Enterline shared, "Make sure you say I love you as much as you can because you never, ever know what's going to happen."
Learn more about assistance for farmers from the Cornell Cooperative Extension Southwest New York Dairy, Livestock & Field Crops Program, as they share what options are available.
More drone photos from BuffaloWeather1, provided by photographer Richard Hulbard, can be found on YouTube.
