Commissioners approve disaster declaration Monday

Hamilton County Emergency Manager Kirt Smith approached the Hamilton County Board of Commissioners during Monday’s meeting in hopes to approve a disaster declaration due to the weekends’ storms. 
Before reading the declaration, Smith took time to detail some of the events from the gusts on Friday night, which continued on into Saturday morning.
“Basically as you’re aware of Friday night at about 10:30-ish or a little after Hamilton County was hit by severe winds,” Smith began. “The Grand Island airport measured an 84 mile-per-hour wind. Then it seemed like it kind of let up a little bit and then at about Highway 34 and the Giltner spur it picked back up really strong again.”
A major gust of 78 mph was recorded two miles west of Aurora, he added. And the weather instruments atop the Aurora Fire Department picked up gusts as high as 65 mph.
From what he has gathered, however, winds might have gusted as high as 90 mph in parts of the county, he said. 

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