下午在办公室写论文，天空突然就劈裂怕啦地下了十分钟冰雹。关了办公室门都可以听到我部门的同事在那里兴奋地大声喊叫买狗买狗（my god)。冰雹还夹着雷电。我也跑到门口看了一下。我的办公室离图书馆后门就几米远。回家在网上谷歌查阅了hail Ellensburg两个字，发现这篇文章不错。有些词很有用。比如：雷雨冰雹Thunderstorm-driven hail；商业果园commercial orchards； 长期商业果树种植者longtime commercial tree-fruit grower；冰雹把苹果和梨砸得皮开肉绽The hail bruised, dented and broke the skin of apples and pears.

普查了受灾情况之后after surveying the damage done

Thunderstorm-driven hail on July 17 damaged apples and pears in commercial orchards on Manastash Ridge southeast of Ellensburg, throwing most of the fruit out of the running for the fresh market.

“This is just devastating, very devastating,” said longtime commercial tree-fruit grower Ben Kern last week after surveying the damage done to his orchards on the north-facing slopes of Manastash Ridge. “Before the storm, it was looking like one of best crops we’ve ever had. There was a lot of money put into that crop. It remains to be seen if we’ll be able to salvage any of it.”

Other commercial tree-fruit growers reported varying degrees of damage from the storm that dropped up to three inches of rain in an hour, with hail falling for at least 20 minutes. The hail bruised, dented and broke the skin of apples and pears.

One observer said the hail was bigger than peas and covered the ground at one point, making it look like the middle of winter. The winds were so fierce that a number of tall poplar trees used for windbreaks were sheared off at the top.

For the handful of commercial growers with damaged apples on the ridge on the south side of the Kittitas Valley, the hope is that they’ll later get a fair price from processors who buy apples for juice and other products. Juice apples command a fraction of what growers receive for undamaged fresh fruit.

Wiped out

Most growers, at this point, only want to make sure they break even and get back from this year’s crop what they put into it.

What price they’ll get is unknown as the market begins to firm up at harvest time and into early next year. There’s some indications the juice market will be a good one, but the effect of so much fruit going into juice may drop the price.

“I’d say we were wiped out, as far as the fresh fruit market goes,” said Fritz Glover, an apple and pear grower with orchards off Payne Road. “We weren’t here at the time but we were told that around our property there was at least an inch of hail. We’ve, essentially, lost the crop.”

Kern, a grower for 45 years, estimated 80 to 85 percent of his Honeycrisp apples were damaged off Payne Road, about seven miles southeast of Ellensburg.

An orchard block of Red Delicious apples looked like 30 percent were damaged, noting they have thicker skins and are more resilient.

He estimated that in a block of pears, about 15 to 30 percent had damage.

Kern’s orchards a half-mile to the east, off Orchard Road, look like they were only slightly damaged.

“But we’ll have to see what happens,” Kern said. “As the fruit grows, any dents or bruises become bigger. ... I’m really getting tired of these weather patterns.”

Bigger than peas

Urban Eberhart, of Eberhart Orchards, said he continues to assess the damage to the apples and pears grown on the ridge in his family operation.

He said there was definite damage, with the extent not fully known.

Eberhart said it appears the thunderstorm dropped much of its rain and hail in a large swath that included the area of Payne, Vanderbilt and Fourth Parallel roads, on the ridge top and extending about three miles south onto the other side of Manastash Ridge that slopes into the Yakima River.

That area takes in where the two landslides occurred that blocked state Route 821 through the Yakima River Canyon, he said.

“I believe growers on the southern ridge all received some level of damage,” Eberhart said.

Representatives of the Zirkle Fruit Co. in Yakima, which owns orchards on the ridge, did not return phone calls inquiring about possible hail damage.

Auvil Fruit Co. south of Vantage didn’t receive damage from the July 17 storm.

Break even

Glover said he won’t make any money on this year’s fruit.

“We’ll probably just get enough (from selling to juice processors) to cover what it cost to grow, spray and pick them,” Glover said. “At best we can hope for is to break even.”

The hail damage, especially broken skin, increases the fruit’s susceptibility to pests, and he’s sprayed the damaged apples and pears with fungicide and an anti-bacterial to steer clear of a fire blight infection.

The Kelly and Nena Kukes family orchards off Fourth Parallel Road also were hit hard, according to Kelly Kukes.

Although he continues to assess the damage, Kelly said it appears that 70 to 80 percent of his apples were damaged.

He said the July 17 storm seemed to blow hail down into the trees, damaging some fruit in the interior of the tree and not just on the outside branches.

There was a swirling aspect to the storm, Kelly said, with the wind coming from one direction, then coming from another.

The Kukes have their own packing operation and direct market their apples to retailers in the region.

“The crop looked beautiful, it was gorgeous,” Kelly said about its quality before the storm.

Kelly said the family orchards have been hailed on before, “and it looked terrible for a while, but God is good. We ended up all right and paid all the bills.”

“God will see us through this time, too,” Kelly said about the July 17 storm damage. “We have faith that God will carry us along through all this. Our God is good.”