This feature appeared in the September 16, 2026 edition of the Star Valley Independent. 

At first, the storm sounded like a train.

Then it sounded like a herd of bison running full speed through the walls of Charlotte Parsons’ house.

At 7:19 p.m. on August 28, Parsons stood in her driveway taking a quick photo for an exchange-student host-family application. A minute later, the sky over southern Star Valley had turned green-gray. Wind tore through the neighborhood, toppling trees and power lines as hail hammered the windows.

Inside, Parsons gathered her husband, Kyle, and their children and led them downstairs.

For 10 minutes, their home disappeared inside the roar.

Outside, hail would pile against the doors deep enough to require shoveling. The chicken coop would flip. Windows would shatter. Kayaks would land in a neighbor’s yard. Shingles, branches and fragments of siding would litter the lawn.

The storm swept through communities between Smoot and Afton at roughly 7:30 p.m. The National Weather Service described it as a microburst, a rapidly strengthening thunderstorm that dropped its core of rain and hail over the valley with unusual force. Trees fell into homes and across roads. Power poles snapped. Lines came down. Roofs peeled back, windows shattered and siding was stripped or pocked by hail.

Local religious leader John LaMunyon saw the clouds pour over the hill behind his house. He opened the sliding glass door to look, then watched the wind accelerate and the hail begin.

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Within minutes, the yard disappeared.

“You couldn’t see the grass,” LaMunyon said.

Chairs blew across the property. A hot-tub cover came off. A patio table and umbrella flew away. The hail and rain formed a whiteout so dense that he could barely see the barn on his own property or the homes behind it.

Then, as quickly as it had formed, the storm began to break apart.

“Ten minutes later, there was some blue sky showing,” LaMunyon said. “It just kind of went through.”

At first, he thought it had been a bad but isolated hailstorm. Then his religious counselor called with a report, “Bishop,” the man told him, “half my roof is gone.”

LaMunyon got into his truck and began driving through the darkened communities, checking on people and trying to understand what had happened. The power outage made it difficult to see. Many families did not yet know the full extent of their own damage.

By daylight, the damage was unmistakable. In neighborhoods throughout Smoot and Osmond, roofs were badly damaged, trees lay across property, and some homes had lost major portions of their roofing. At LaMunyon’s own home, siding had been stripped away, hail had peeled bark from trees and sandblasted a deck, and every bistro-light bulb on one side of the house had shattered.

While homeowners across the valley watched the storm approach, Barney Kleeman’s family was gathered in Smoot for a rehearsal dinner.

Her son, Reese, and Lizzie were scheduled to marry the next day at the property belonging to Kleeman’s father and Eko. For months, the family had prepared the grounds for the wedding. The property had been carefully groomed. Every detail had been made ready.

At 6:00 p.m. Friday, about 75 friends and relatives gathered outside for dinner and rehearsal.

Then the storm rolled in.

“Within a couple of short minutes, the amount of hail, rain and wind that settled in was so wild,” Kleeman said.

Guests looked for cover beneath a large stand of trees as branches and trunks began crashing down around them. The family watched the carefully prepared venue disappear beneath hail, debris and fallen timber.

“The devastation in my heart for how hard everyone had worked was so heavy,” Kleeman said.

Still, everyone made it through the storm safely.

“By the grace of God, no one was hurt,” she said.

With another storm approaching, the family got everyone off the property and began wondering what the next day would look like. The wedding was supposed to be Saturday. The grounds were damaged. Trees had fallen. Hours earlier, the place had been filled with rehearsal dinner guests; now it was a cleanup site.

Early Saturday morning, Reese and Lizzie made their choice: They wanted to get married there anyway, if there was any way to make it happen.

By 8:00 a.m., the answer had arrived in the sound of chainsaws.

Five or six saws were already running. Then came trucks, trailers, tractors, shovels and rakes. People worked through the morning and into the day, clearing fallen trees and debris from the property. They came not because a formal call had been issued, but because a couple in their community still hoped to have a wedding.

“It was nothing short of amazing,” Kleeman said.

By that evening, the grounds had been transformed again. Reese and Lizzie were married.

Family members who had traveled from Fallon, Nevada, told Kleeman they had quietly hoped Reese would eventually return there. But after seeing what happened Friday night and Saturday morning, they understood why he belonged in Star Valley.

“Reese is home,” they said. “This is his home.”

The storm had left thousands without power and damaged an estimated 15 to 25 power poles. Lower Valley Energy crews, assisted by crews from Jackson and private contractors, worked through the night. Most service had been restored by Saturday morning.

At Parsons’ home, family from Afton brought generators after the family’s own equipment became inaccessible. They connected freezers so food would not spoil. Then Parsons’ phone began filling with messages.

“Are you OK?”

“Can we help?”

“I have an open bedroom.”

“Come stay in one of our cabins.”

“What can we do?”

The offers were overwhelming for Parsons, who is accustomed to being on the other side of such moments as a health-care provider and community volunteer.

“I am usually the one that is giving out the help,” she said. “I was so overwhelmed.”

By Saturday morning, help was no longer a message. It was a line of vehicles arriving with dump trailers, loaders, gloves, chainsaws and skid steers. Some people knew the families they helped. Others did not.

LaMunyon had planned to drive around, identify the hardest-hit homes and organize volunteers. Instead, he repeatedly found that people had arrived ahead of him.

“I was mostly getting phone calls of, ‘Hey, we fixed this. Where should we go next?’” he said.

At the home of an older man who was out of town when trees fell onto his property, LaMunyon expected to organize a crew after the insurance company gave approval for removal. When he drove by later that afternoon, volunteers had already cleared the trees.

“That was the hardest job,” he said, “was just trying to find something that wasn’t already tackled.”

Heather Miserany watched the same scene unfold at her home. Vista Tree Care showed up with two wood-chipper trucks. DNS Excavation brought a loader to haul massive trees. Jerry Balls brought equipment to move large piles of branches. Shan Townsend and DRC, Inc. crews arrived ready to work.

Neighbors and volunteers brought the rest: dump trailers, labor, time and food.

Breakfast burritos came from Marci Johnson. Pizza and cookies arrived from Abbie Hokanson. Emily Martin brought sandwiches. Heidi Daniel brought Red Baron Drive-In cheeseburgers.

“It was really making me emotional to just look around and see how everyone came to help us even though they probably had plans of their own for Saturday,” Miserany said. “We are so very thankful for every one of you.”

LaMunyon remembered people driving through affected neighborhoods with pizza, soup and other meals. For residents who could not leave their homes, or for those spending the day clearing trees and covering damaged roofs, food became another form of rescue.

“If people felt like they couldn’t really get out and help physically,” he said, “they were doing whatever they could.”

The cleanup will last longer than the storm did. Roofs need replacing. Windows need repair. Trees remain to be removed. Families still face insurance claims, damaged vehicles and the gradual work of rebuilding homes and yards.

Yet the people who stood beneath the storm that Friday night will remember something else alongside the wreckage.

Parsons remembers the fear on her children’s faces as hail battered their home and the electricity went out. She remembers standing outside afterward, trying to understand the damage. And she remembers waking up to messages from people offering rooms, meals, equipment and their own Saturday plans.

She began her career at Star Valley Health two decades ago, when its motto was “Neighbors caring for neighbors.” Administrations and slogans may change, she said, but the valley’s instinct has not.

“I always hear, ‘There is something different about the people here in Star Valley,’” Parsons said. “I would agree with that completely.”

On Friday night, the valley was struck by a green-gray sky, roaring wind and a whiteout of hail. On Saturday, it answered with chainsaws, trailers, generators, wood chippers, warm meals and enough hands to clear a wedding venue before the vows began.

Much work remains as Smoot and Osmond residents work to restore their homes and properties. If you can lend a hand, please reach out to neighbors in the affected areas and ask how you can help.