LAPORTE, Ind. – Straight-line winds are blamed for bending several metal high voltage line towers like pretzels during a heavy rainstorm that pushed farmers in northwest Indiana further behind in their spring planting.

The May 20 storm only lasted a half hour at the most but produced an inch or more of rain in spots, along with hail and wind speeds of at least 60 miles per hour in some locations.

The storm also brought a brief 10- to-15-degree drop in temperatures.

In La Porte County, the Minich Family Dairy Farm was still running on a generator the day after the storm brought down five electrical transmission line towers owned by the Northern Indiana Public Service Company.

All the badly twisted metal towers were on land the Minich family uses to raise mostly corn along with soybeans, wheat and alfalfa between Kingsbury and Union Mills.

Frank Minich said power at his family’s dairy farm went out just as the generator was being hooked up to milk the cows and restore electrical service to the entire 700-800 head operation.

Minich said he traveling on a tractor to hook up the generator at his home a short distance away but had to drive around a number of fallen trees to get there. He also caught his first glimpse of the fallen electrical line towers.

“There’s five of them kind of bent on the ground and just lying in the fields. Kind of crazy,” he said.

Westville area farmer Mark Parkman was caught in the storm while planting the final 1 acre of corn he has in one of his fields along Holmesville Road.

After leaving the 240-acre field, Parkman said he was driving home in his tractor pulling the planter on County Road 900 West when he encountered a nearby lightning strike he described as scary.

“It shook the whole tractor. It was closer than I care for,” he said.

Parkman also said the heavy rain certainly didn’t help efforts to catch up on his spring planting delayed from what’s been a wet season.

He said just 60 percent of his corn and 45 percent of his soybeans in other fields were in the ground when, normally, he’d already be finished with planting.

Parkman said the spring has been wet enough for him to do some of his planting in soil probably too wet in spots in a desperate bid to try and catch up.

Farmer Matt Schafer, of LaCrosse, said he still has roughly 25 percent of his corn and 10 percent of his soybeans left to plant after working long hours during a short period when the soil was just dry enough to lay down as much seed as possible.

He said the recent storm that produced more than an inch of rain didn’t help matters at a time when yields could now be negatively impacted from the planting delays unless good weather extends the growing season.

If the wet period doesn’t subside, Schafer said there’s a possibility of having to do some replanting, especially in low lying areas where seed is more susceptible to rot from high moisture levels in the soil.

“Hopefully, it doesn’t come to that,” he said.

There were no confirmed reports of any tornadoes during the recent storm but the amount of fallen trees and the twisted high voltage line towers had people speculating.

“It had to take an awfully powerful wind shear or a straight-line wind to knock those towers down. They actually crumbled to the ground,” said Mike Kellems, a retired LaPorte County Police officer who took pictures of the towers and other storm related damage.