Long Road: Kansas Family Rebuilds and Revives Dairy After 2019 Tornado Wiped Out Family Farm
It's a day Rob and Lisa Leach will never forget.
“May 28th, 6:43pm,” says Rob, remembering the day their lives took a dramatic turn. “That's when it hit us.”
May 28, 2019 is the day the Leach’s entire farm was wiped out by an EF4 tornado.
“It was noisy, but it was just like nonstop wind,” Rob told Farm Journal just days after the tornado hit in 2019. “It was just the most incredible wind you ever can imagine.”
The Aftermath
The twister that hit their Linwood, Kan. farm was a monster at a mile wide, carrying 170 mile per hour winds.
“We've got a lot outbuildings, we have our shop, freestall barn, calf barn holding pins, grain bins, garages, silos: it's all gone,” Rob said in May 2019.
Two days after the tornado ripped through their farm, Farm Journal’s video crew was on the scene and captured the aftermath. Metal in trees, the milking parlor and barns flattened. The structures were gone, but what was even more painful was the fact the Leach family lost part of their herd.
“When we came up the hill, out of our basement, we expected the worst , and we immediately found what we had cattle meeting us, we had cattle in our yard, cattle walking all over the place and also dead cows,” said Rob.
The winds were so powerful, some cows were carried more than half a mile away.
“The one that was the farthest away, we didn't find for 24 hours, and she was the most valuable cow on the farm,” said Rob. “She was down in a ditch and couldn't get up.”
Will We Ever Dairy Again?
Taylor Leach, Rob and Lisa’s daughter who is also part of the Farm Journal family, reflected on the tornado recently. But when we talked to her just days after the tornado hit, she was still in disbelief.
“Trash everywhere, nails everywhere, wires everywhere,” she told us. “If we ever have cattle here again, I don’t even know how we're going to be able to clean up all of the wire and nails out in the pasture,” said Taylor.
The raw reaction was fresh, as the Leach family had scrambled to immediately get the surviving cows to help.
“We could only get 20 out of here the first night,” says Rob, who says roads were blocked by down trees. “Those are the ones that were hurt the worst.”
The next morning, Rob says what was left of their 125 head herd, were also hauled out. Volunteers, some who had never touched a cow, helped lead the cows, halter free, to the road.
“We have so many friends,” says Lisa. “I mean, they're very good friends, that took them to roughly 14,15 farms at one time.”
As ones with minor injuries went to farms, the animals were scattered throughout the area and sent to anyone who had space. The furthest location was a farm in Colorado. The cows wounded the most, were rescued and taken in by a local farm.
“Vets that worked all night long on cows that were cut up,” says Rob.
“And they never charged us,” remembers Lisa.
“No, we never got any bills for any medical work. And they said, ‘well, we'll just have to charge you for drugs.’ And then some drug company donated drugs, so we didn't have to pay for that. So, we were very fortunate,” adds Rob.
We Will Rebuild
From a tattered farm two years ago, with pieces scattered for miles, the scene looks much different today.
“We’ve brought home about 60 cows or so,” says Lisa.
“So, we've got at least that many still farmed out,” adds Rob.
As rebuilding is still taking place in Linwood, major headway has also happened thanks to countless volunteers.
“There were literally hundreds of people, volunteers, that came,” says Lisa. “I would say we averaged 100 people a day for over three weeks.”
An army of volunteers who came, many without even being asked, all who helped pick up the pieces left by the 2019 tornado.
“We had several massive cleanups that summer that we cleared as much debris out of the fields as we could,” says Lisa.
“I think we walked about 200 to 300 acres, just shoulder to shoulder, walking in the fields and picking up debris,” Rob says.
It’s those efforts that slowly cleaned up shredded structures and debris once scattered across their farm. But it wasn’t something that happened quickly. Every nail. Every piece of metal. All of it had to be picked up.
“We sold 350,000 pounds of scrap metal in this in the summer of 2020,” says Rob.
They say the effort to mend the damage and pick up all the pieces not lasted for more than a year.
“We drained seven ponds, because they were just completely filled with steel, barn, tin, lumber,” says Rob.
But from the rubble, rose new life and a new look for the Leach family.
“We started with a commodity barn. It was kind of the catch all,” says Rob.
One structure replaced at a time, with foundation poured for the next, in an effort to replace 11 barns battered by the storm.
“COVID-19 didn't help our cause at all,” explains Rob. “After COVID-19, it was kind of a strange phenomenon. People were building stuff all over the place, the price of materials went through the roof and you couldn't get a crew to do anything.”
Much of this work was done with their own hands, with three new blue barns planted on the same dirt their old barns were on.
The Effort to Milk Again
The final barn was built on December 21, 2020, and one that Rob, along with 17 friends and family, constructed themselves. It marked the final piece in a two-year orchestrated effort to finally start milking again.
“We've been approved by the co-op to start milking again,” says Lisa. “We've got a trucker lined up that's going to haul the milk for us. And we we've got six cows that we're milking right now.”
All the work, the hours, the constant efforts to rebuild; it was all to accomplish one thing: be able to milk again. And that day finally came for Lisa in June, a moment she captured on camera as the first milk truck drove away.
A New Era
As the milk truck left, it signaled a new era for the Leach family. Rob and Lisa now travel the same path from the house to the barn they took before the tornado hit, to milk the cows today.
“This is our passion,” says Rob. “This is what we do for fun. This is all we've ever done for fun. We like to show cows, that's kind of our thing.”
“I wasn’t ready to quit,” says Lisa.
As Lisa says calling it quits never crossed their minds, she also didn’t want to give up on our cows.
“Honestly, we had some of the best cows we had ever had,” says Rob.
“We had some really good cows, and that's probably the only reason we came back,” adds Lisa.
And a comeback it was. The same year the tornado hit, the Leach’s youngest daughter, Sophie, took home Grand Champion at the Kansas State Fair with their Holstein named Lin-Crest Bradnick Tess, a cow that still bared the scar after surviving the tornado that left a gash in her neck just months before.
The family also won the “Jersey Jug” at Louisville with their Jersey Juju, another survivor, and one shown by the woman who rescued Juju and 20 other cows the night the tornado hit.
“We've had some good days in the show ring since the tornado,” says Rob.
“Some phenomenal days,” says Lisa.
“So, we were very lucky,” adds Rob.
Stronger than the Storm
As the Leach family cherishes what they’ve accomplished in two short years, they say their family farm was restored for their three girls.
“I mean, they love it, too,” says Rob. “We're doing it for them. This is their passion.”
And as a family, they continue to defeat any doubts, while beating the odds.
“I think the only doubt was, whether or not we could milk again,” says Lisa.
“We just weren't sure, you know, if we were going to be able to rebuild,” says Rob.
“Every now and then, you really need to go back and look at the pictures just to remind yourself how far you've come,” adds Lisa. “And how many people have helped you get there.”
A lifetime of passion, with the people who knew it wasn’t Rob and Lisa’s time to call it quits.
“Getting all these buildings built back, when it took us a lifetime to build what we had,” says Rob. “So to get back here within two years, is amazing.”
As even two years later, the leaches continue to prove they’re truly stronger than the storm.
Farmers and ranchers continue to show grit with grace while battling various challenges farm and ranch families face. Read more "Grit with Grace" stories here.
