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Lincoln County impacted by heat and drought

Rain needed to save crops, fireworks

July 03, 2012|By Ben Kleppinger | ben@theinteriorjournal.com

STANFORD — After a week of heat, including four straight days of triple-digit highs, at least three fires and essentially no rainfall, Lincoln County remained under burn and fireworks bans Monday night.

Lincoln County Fire Chief Danny Glass said unless rain shows up in enough force to quench the county's parched earth, the bans will remain in place and the Lincoln County Fair will not feature its traditional July 4 fireworks display.

"We've been holding off as long as we could," Glass said Monday. "We really hate to spoil anyone's fireworks."

Prior to Lincoln County declaring burn and fireworks bans Monday morning, the cities of Hustonville and Stanford had issued their own burn and fireworks bans last week. Crab Orchard did not issue any bans, and a fireworks display there Friday night went off without incident.

Fourth of July fun isn't the only thing being affected by the recent heat wave, which caused highs of 101 on Thursday, 103 on Friday, 104 on Saturday and 101 on Sunday.

Lincoln County Agricultural Extension Agent Dan Grigson said the drought conditions in the county are getting to a critical point for several crops, including hay, corn and soy beans.

Even just a little moisture could kick-start hay crops of red clover or alfalfa, but without rain by the coming weekend, corn crops will likely suffer severely. Soy beans have about 10 days left before a lack of rain will damage that crop substantially as well, Grigson said.

With poor crops, farmers will have less feed for their livestock and might be forced to dip into their winter stockpiles. No matter how you spin it, the drought means bad times for farmers, Grigson said.

"Rather than selling a 500-pound calf in October, they may be selling a 300-pound calf," he said.

Even though isolated thunderstorms rolled through central Kentucky Sunday, rain largely missed Lincoln County.

Hustonville Mayor Marc Spivey said his city saw a sprinkling Sunday evening but not enough for him to lift the city's burn and fireworks bans.

The weather caused power outages across the state, as wind littered roads with branches and leaves.

Kentucky Utilities Media Relations Manager Cliff Feltham said Lincoln County saw only a scattering of small outages that affected fewer than 75 customers. Power was restored to all Lincoln KU customers by 9:30 a.m. Monday.

"You guys got by relatively easy in the midst of the storm," Feltham said.

InterCounty Energy spokeswoman Sheree Gilliam said there were 15 reported outages off of Ky. 198 and 64 outages on Black Pike Road in the Hustonville area. Another 28 outages were reported in southern Lincoln County and into Casey County, Gilliam said.

Editor’s note: Advocate-Messenger staff writer David Brock contributed to this report.

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