VIDALIA — Vidalia farmer David Yates admits he was afraid when last Sunday’s intense storm passed through the area, bringing hail and 70-mile per hour winds.

The next day, he went out to inspect his crops, and found that all was not lost.

“I was expecting a lot worse,” Yates said.

Over the last week, farmers have been taking stock of what damage they received and what they will do next.

And how things turned out had a lot to do with location, luck and when they planted.

Adams County farmer Mike Guedon said his cornfield made it through the storm because it was still relatively young.

“I know some guys who had some corn that was a lot larger, and it was snapped off by the wind,” Guedon said.

Yates said he has heard of similar damage in Concordia Parish.

“I have heard some farmers had 10 to 15 percent damage on some of their corn,” Yates said. “Corn that blows over will recover, but when the stalk snaps off at the ground, it won’t recover.”

In his experience, corn that was shorter than waist high might bend,

but corn that was taller might break under the intense winds, Yates said.

Other crops weathered the storm with little impact.

“The storm blew our wheat over, but it kind of stood back up on its own,” Guedon said.

The hail that accompanied the storm did some damage to soybeans, but it wasn’t enough to destroy the crops, Yates said.

Guedon, who also farms in Louisiana, said the people who farm the land next to his lost 1,000 acres to hail damage, but he only received minimal damage.

“I was worried, but hail is kind of hard to tell where it is going to hit,” he said.

With that storm behind them, the farmers of the Miss-Lou will keep moving toward the harvest.

“We still have a way to go,” Yates said.

“I think overall we came out fairly well.”