A MIGHTY BLOW
Straight-line winds damage Spring Lake Park
Strong wind caused major damage to structures at Spring Lake Park on Thursday in Tex ark ana, Texas, including pushing down a wall at the park’s main baseball diamond.
Wind crumpled the rightfield wall at George Dobson Field, the home diamond for the Texas A&M-Texarkana Eagles and Texarkana Twins baseball teams, also ripping off dugout roofs and doing other damage at youth-league ball fields in the park.
Texas- side Parks and Recreation employees will be assessing and recording the damage for an insurance claim, said Robby Robertson, department director. Maintenance crews were busy Friday cleaning up after the storm in preparation for Saturday’s Twice as Fine Wine Festival at the park.
Twins’ owner Uri Geva said he had been in touch with the city and was confident that Dobson Field would be repaired in time for the team’s home opener May 25. The Eagles’ season is coming to an end with a conference tournament that began Friday in Shreveport, La.
A weather phenomenon called straight-line wind—not a tornado—caused the damage, said Aaron Stevens, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Shreveport, La., office.
Straight-line wind results from a storm collapsing, causing all of its rain and ice to fall at once, Stevens said. The precipitation displaces air at the earth’s surface, pushing out a pressure wave of wind that can reach speeds of 5o to 70 mph and then quickly dissipate.