Almost crushed

FARIBAULT, Minn. — On Sept. 14, Josh Kelm and his three young children, Ava, Payton and Colton, and his mom, Colleen, were in a silo room on their 250-cow dairy near Faribault cleaning up when Josh heard two popping noises that sounded like gunshots.

“I said, ‘This doesn’t sound good,’” Josh said. “I told the kids, ‘We need to run and we need to run fast.’”

Instantly, they began fleeing out of the silo room, around the corner, past two other silos and towards safety.

“We didn’t think of anything,” Ava said. “We just ran for our lives.”

Josh had read a Facebook post earlier this summer about how silos could fail and crash, and that knowledge had stayed with him.

“For some reason (that sound) triggered something that I knew there was danger,” Josh said. “(When) I told the kids (to run), I must have said in a pretty firm voice; they understood that they needed to go. … The fact that they took me as seriously as they did is amazing.”

As Josh was fleeing, the two younger children, ages 9 and 10, ran ahead of him and were about 150 feet away from the silo when Josh suddenly realized 12-year-old Ava was not with them.

He turned around to go back to find her, and as he did, Josh said the silo crashed “like a tree coming down times 1,000” about 20 feet in front of him.

“I wish I could say I saw it, but I didn’t see anything; there was just solid dust,” Josh said.

Josh panicked, not knowing where his daughter was.

“My instant thought was (she) was underneath the silo,” Josh said. “Thankfully though she was crying, so I was able to find her incredibly fast, and that feeling passed really fast.”

Ava said she thought in the moment that she was not far enough away to be safe when the silo fell with a sound like an earthquake.

“I was scared and thought I was going to die,” she said.

When Josh found her, he learned Ava and her grandma had gone in a slightly different direction and Ava had tripped while running. Nearby, a sizeable block from the silo was less than 5 feet away. Her arm had a small scratch from flying debris, but otherwise she was safe.

Josh said the horrible moment hit his kids even worse than it hit him.

“They were shaking and they were balling and it was terrifying,” he said.

When the silo came down, Payton and Colton also were aware that Ava was not with them.

“We were looking for them, we were yelling for them, and they didn’t answer,” Payton said.

After finding Ava was safe, Josh’s next thought was where his dad, Jerry, was. Jerry had been in the barn and Josh was afraid the silo had landed on top of it. Luckily, no cattle were injured, Jerry was safe and the barn stayed intact.

“I’m still shaking from it, even when I talk about it,” Josh said. “It’s just how close we were to it.”

The main objects under the silo were a skid loader, blower and tractor.

Back at home, Josh’s wife, Brittney, received a panicked call from her mother-in-law, letting her know what had happened and that everyone was OK.

“You send them up there thinking they’ll come home safe each night,” Brittney said.

When the silo fell, the failing silo had spun, hitting another silo and taking it down with it.

“(Hitting the other silo) actually changed the direction the silo fell,” Josh said. “All I can explain is that God literally had His hand on it and He grabbed that silo and He positioned it in the direction that saved everything: saved the cattle and saved us.”

The Kelms had been filling the 18- by 80-foot silo earlier that day.

“Mom had just dumped her last load for that night probably like 20 minutes prior,” Josh said. “There were two more full loads sitting there to be unloaded, but she decided to call it quits for the night. (If she had not) she would have been literally unloading while it was coming down.”

The silo was full of about 600 tons of corn silage, representing 3-4 months’ worth of corn silage. The other silo was a high-moisture corn silo that was about half full, representing about 6 months’ worth of corn.

Josh said he hopes to salvage about 50% of the corn silage.

“It’s hard,” Josh said. “We’re short of manpower, so we’re trying to do the best we can.”

The family plans to chop more corn silage to make up for what was lost.

“I’m hoping we’ll have enough, or really close to enough, for the year,” Josh said. “(It) might be a little on the dry side, but at least we’ll have something.”

The silos were uninsured. Josh said they had been considering putting in bunkers before the accident, but had not done so because of the financial output.

“It’s hard when the silos are bought and paid for to turn around and have another bank payment when milk prices aren’t that great,” he said.

Josh said the community has been extremely supportive.

“Everybody is thankful that obviously our lives are spared,” he said. “I’m just surprised at how many people have said that this has happened to them.”

Josh said his kids have also gotten past the horror of the moment.

“They’re excited now,” he said. “They have a story to tell.”

The children have told their pastor as well as friends and family the story.

“(People think) that it was cool and impressive that we lived,” Payton said.

Josh is not sure of the direct cause of the silo crash. One factor is that this year the grain yield on his corn silage was higher, making the silage heavier.

“The hollow blocks (also) definitely weren’t favorable,” he said. “I thought it was the hoops that popped. I was told it was the concrete that was actually breaking, but the hoops were rusty, and that’s why I thought they were just failing, but that could have been one of the things that contributed.”

Overall, Josh said he is grateful he and his family are alive.

“Another split second (later) before we ran, we would have been underneath it,” Josh said.