Severe Weather, Tornado Sweep Through Certain Areas In The USA

Volunteer firefighters directed traffic as other emergency responders and utility workers dealt with downed power lines on the east side of the road. Barbed wire fences snagged twisted sheets of tin that appeared to come from a shed and grain bins at a farmstead west of the highway.

A house near the shed lost its roof, but the full extent of damage was not visible from the road. A similar farmstead east of the highway also suffered damage.

Debris was strewn across a roughly half-mile stretch of muddy corn stubble on both sides of the highway.

Todd Watson, chief deputy for the Daviess County Sheriff’s Department, said the storm entered into the county from DeKalb County, traveling straight through. The last area with damage was near UU Highway.

Two mobile homes were destroyed in the county, he said.

Several utility poles in the county and in the Winston, Mo., area were also destroyed in the storm, knocking out power for Farmers Electric Cooperative customers. Crews continued fixing the damage into the evening.

In neighboring Grundy County, Sheriff Rodney Herring said a county employee spotted a tornado touching down at Route A and Highway 65. From there, it took about a nine-mile path northeast to about 105th and NN Highway, Mr. Herring said, all just under 10 miles north of Trenton, Mo.

Maddie Book, a 15-year-old Lafayette High School student, was in Trenton for a track meet. She stayed in a shelter for nearly an hour.

“It was just so scary hearing the thunder,” she said. “I knew I’d never seen anything like it before. When we were going into the shelter, we just saw clouds moving in the air and I just got in the shelter as quick as we could.”

Mr. Herring said two homes were considered a total loss, with an additional five homes that ranged from minor to moderate damage.

“That is not taking into account barns and outbuildings,” he said, of which there were several with damage.

Lt. Scott Meyer of the Missouri State Highway Patrol said troopers were tasked with assisting ambulance services and sheriff’s departments, as well as monitoring and warning citizens ahead of the storm.

“It was a fairly quick-moving storm and had a defined path that it went through,” he said. “Once it moved through an area, everybody who was out there was checking on injuries and checking on the storm damage.”

In all, tornado watches were declared by the National Weather Service for Caldwell, Daviess, Grundy, Harrison, Livingston and Mercer counties.

Mr. Meyer said the storm was first sighted east of Clarksdale, tracked toward Maysville, then near Weatherby, Pattonsburg and near Jameson. He said the storm appeared to have dissipated in Grundy County.

“We had no injuries, no fatals, which is very good with this storm,” he said. ” … It stayed pretty much in the open rural areas.”

Mr. Meyer said those displaced by the storm were receiving help from the American Red Cross and had made arrangements for places to stay.