POYNETTE, Wis. -- Farmers were assessing the damage on Monday after about 5 inches of rain fell in less than 24 hours, and a 40-minute hail storm moved across parts of Columbia County.

The area north of Poynette -- about 10 miles wide -- apparently got hit the hardest by Sunday's storm, WISC-TV reported.

Bob Kellesvig, a county services director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, surveyed the damage and said that he was moved to tears by the devastation. Kellesvig said that he didn't expect he'd have to walk over lingering hail piles a day after the storm.

He said that he saw miles of corn, soy beans and wheat that took a tremendous pounding, WISC-TV reported.

"It's not my crop, but it still hurts," he said. "This is the worst I've ever seen."

Locals said that there was so much hail on the roads that they actually called the snow plows on Sunday afternoon, WISC-TV reported.

Farmer Jim Woodward, who has about 1,400 acres of crops, said that he saw the rain and hail come down.

"I was sitting in my home just kind of cringing, watching it shred my corn right outside my home," Woodward said.

He said this storm yielded devastating results. He said that his family has been farming here since 1948.

"I guess I would say in my lifetime -- especially my 25 years of farming -- it's the worst I've ever seen," he said.

Farmers aren't the only ones with losses. Local gardeners also lost plants in the storm. Bob Schultz said that the hail shredded every plant that he had, including green beans, musk melons, peppers and tomatoes.

"(It's) probably one of the best gardens I ever had," Schultz said, "The corn was knee high."

"We were looking out the window and we thought it was going to break the windows it was coming down that hard. And it was like half-dollar size but it was flat," he said.

Some farmers said that they have insurance to cover losses but others don't, WISC-TV reported.

Kellesvig said that he doesn't think the damage was wide enough to bring in federal disaster dollars.

Department of Agriculture officials and others said that it will take several days to calculate the total area that has been impacted, and farmers said that they will not know until harvest time just how much they've lost from the storm.