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Getting through the calm after the storm

News - Louisburg

Written by Kristen Waggener

Friday, 19 June 2009 08:32

Dan and Marty York consider themselves lucky.

A few limbs are strewn about, one of the trees in their backyard is leaning, a few roof shingles are missing, and the electricity went out. But the storm that hit Drexel, Mo., on Monday night left their home — and nearly every home in the small town — mostly intact with comparatively minimal damage.

“As near as we can tell, the only people that had damage were when trees had fallen (on homes or vehicles),” Marty York said.

The National Weather Service in Pleasant Hill, Mo., reported large supercell thunderstorms bore down on southern Miami County and northern Linn County in Kansas and southern Cass County and northern Bates County in Missouri on Monday night and early Tuesday morning producing winds between 90 and 110 mph. The storms were not tornadic in nature, according to the NWS, but the wind speeds were comparable to an EF-1 tornado.

“The storm had a bow echo, and the front of the bow was directly over Drexel — that’s why they got the worst part of it,” said John Cassida, who lives south of Louisburg and is a trained storm spotter with the National Weather Service.

The Yorks, whose children have attended Louisburg schools, took shelter in their home about 10:30 p.m. Monday night as the tornado sirens sounded. Marty York said some members of the family took shelter in the basement while she and their dog hid in the closet for about an hour.

“It was a lot of lightning,” she said. “And what sounded like hail ended up being the leaves off the trees.”

Kelly and Jack Smith, who work at Louisburg Baptist Temple, were having an evening out at Chateau Avalon in Kansas City, Kan., when the storm came barreling through.

The Smiths waited until Tuesday morning, when they began to receive phone calls from family and friends, asking if they were okay. Kelly soon received a picture message on her phone — an aerial photo of their home, complete with part of a giant tree that had fallen on the roof.

Driving back to Drexel was just as tormenting because many of the main routes into town were blocked by water over the road or downed power lines, Kelly Smith said.

“You keep wondering, what’s it going to look like,” Jack said. “It’s just kind of amazement because you’ve seen storms before, but not like this.”

Just as they saw in the photo, a giant tree was resting on the roof of their home — and a small tree about one-fourth the size a few feet away was just skimmed. The winds uprooted the larger tree from the ground and split it in two in the process.

The Smiths’ street, Elm Street, was lined with downed trees and power lines. Many of the houses could barely be seen from the street Tuesday afternoon, hours after cleanup had begun — the aftermath of the howling, strong winds was still evident.

“Mom, who lives three houses down, said the wind was blowing so loud that she couldn’t hear the sirens,” Kelly said.

Tornado sirens are one thing Bill Harris, owner of Rutlader Outpost south of Louisburg, is thankful for.

“Our sirens they just put up a couple three weeks ago worked great,” Harris said.

Neither Rutlader nor any of the recreational vehicles parked in the complex’s RV park sustained much damage from the storm, but Harris and his guests heard the strong, straight winds. At about 10:30 p.m., the newly-installed sirens sounded, and everyone went to Rutlader’s storm shelter.

Even at Rutlader, which was on the northern edge of the storm, the power was off, forcing the complex to run on a generator as members of the Outpost Cowbow Church readied for Tuesday evening’s services.

“I think we’re very fortunate,” Harris said.

Storm spotter Cassida, who lives near 327th Street and Metcalf Road, said he watched all night as lightning and rains rushed through the area.

“We got almost four inches (of rain),” Cassida, who has a rain gauge, said. “Things washed out I hadn’t seen washed out before.”

While he monitored the dark night sky, Cassida’s family — his wife, Rita, and two children, Calvin and Kate — took shelter in the basement to wait out the storm.

The damage was widespread, but that didn’t stop residents of Drexel from helping their neighbors.

“What happened (Tuesday) morning would only happen in a small town,” Dan York said. “People got up, called in and said they’re not coming in to work, grabbed their chainsaws, rakes, trailers and got out and just got working. It didn’t even have to be their house.”

Cleanup efforts continued in the town — where the winds ripped the roof off the Veterans of Foreign Wars building, among others — and in southern Miami County, where power crews continued working to restore power to the thousands of customers without electricity Tuesday.

Power companies estimated power could begin to be restored around the area as soon as Wednesday.

“It’s one of those things where we remember Greensburg a couple years ago,” Dan York said. “But we woke up and we still had a house, we still had our cars and our family.”

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