Prairie Crossing Winery rebuilt after a tornado
In mid-June, KETV NewsWatch 7 brought you the story of a beloved family winery severely damaged by a storm. This storm has since been confirmed as an EF-1 tornado. “It was quite a moving experience to see all of this. What was only days ago, is no more,” said winery owner Andy Hrasky. The Treynor, Iowa event hall in Prairie Crossing was razed. The roof was torn from its tasting room and scattered across nearby fields. The vines were crushed. Only two weeks after the storm, our team returned to the winery – to find the roof replaced and plans to reopen this tasting room in mid-July. “Our priority right now is to get the winery back in business,” Hrasky said. A wave of community support makes this possible. Supply chain issues threatened to delay repairs to the roof, but a local roofer stepped in to help. The owners of another local winery, who buy Prairie Crossing wine, have offered storage space. “We work together and I know they do the same for me. So there wasn’t even a question,” said Lyle Ditmars, owner of Ditmars Orchard and Vineyard in Council Bluffs, Iowa, who was thrilled to hear the winery would be reopening so soon. “I was amazed and thrilled. I was really tickled for them.” A reopening this early is also possible as the owners have yet to find a destroyed bottle of wine in the rubble. “We couldn’t recover quickly if all the wine inventory was destroyed. So that’s great,” Hrasky said. “It’s really hard to kill a vine, you have to try really, really hard.” Almost as hard as killing that business owner’s wits. Although some isolation still litters the fields and some vineyards take years to produce a crop again, these winemakers see no reason to complain. “This place is not going away. It’s not defeated, Prairie Crossing is going to be there for everyone to enjoy for a long time,” Hrasky said.
In mid-June, KETV NewsWatch 7 brought you the story of a beloved family business cellar badly damaged by a storm. This storm has since been confirmed as an EF-1 tornado.
“It was quite a moving experience to see all of this. What was only a few days ago, is no more,” said Andy Hrasky, owner of the winery.
The Prairie Crossing Event Hall in Treynor, Iowa was razed. The roof was torn from its tasting room and scattered across nearby fields. The vines were crushed. Only two weeks after the storm, our team returned to the winery – to find the roof replaced and plans to reopen this tasting room in mid-July.
“Our priority right now is to get the winery back in business,” Hrasky said.
A wave of community support makes this possible. Supply chain issues threatened to delay repairs to the roof, but a local roofer stepped in to help. The owners of another local winery, who buy Prairie Crossing wine, have offered storage space.
“We work together and I know they do the same for me. So there wasn’t even a question,” said Lyle Ditmars, owner of Ditmars Orchard and Vineyard in Council Bluffs, Iowa, who was thrilled to hear the winery would be reopening so soon. “I was amazed and thrilled. I was really thrilled for them.”
Reopening so early is also possible as the owners have yet to find a single bottle of wine destroyed in the rubble.
“We couldn’t recover quickly if all the wine inventory was destroyed. So that’s great,” Hrasky said. “It’s really hard to kill a vine, you have to try really, really hard.”
Almost as hard as killing that business owner’s wits. Although some isolation still litters the fields and some vineyards take years to produce a crop again, these winemakers see no reason to complain.
“This place is not going away. It’s not defeated, Prairie Crossing is going to be there for everyone to enjoy for a long time,” Hrasky said.
