A weekend of tornadoes and flash flooding has left parts of Missouri in shambles.
An EF-2 tornado hit Knox County in northeast Missouri. EF-0 tornadoes struck Ray and Saline Counties in western Missouri. The Kirksville area, in northeast Missouri, had substantial flooding. Several people were rescued from flash flooding as a result.
Mike O’Connell, communications director for the Missouri Department of Public Safety, said 35-40 residences in Baring have been destroyed or heavily damaged from the weekend storm.
No deaths have been reported but a couple of minor injuries were reported.
Gov. Mike Parson has activated the state’s emergency operations plan. What does this mean?
“We don’t have any resource requests right now,” said O’Connell. “Requests that we would typically get related to flooding would be assistance with pumping and lighting to keep operations going 24 hours, if necessary. Generators for any type of a disaster, if there’s a power outage. We don’t have requests like that. But what the state of emergency allows is for the state agencies to provide direct assistance to communities that they couldn’t normally do.”
The plan also allows the governor to waive certain state restrictions on things like trucking and weight limits on roads.
Baring’s post office was torn to shreds and the fire station’s roof is gone.
“As far as people getting their mail and protection to, you know, emergencies from the fire department, those communities are working to make sure that that does happen,” said O’Connell.
The state is holding a Multi-Agency Resource Center this Wednesday in Edina for Knox County tornado victims to help recover from the disaster. The event is open from 12:00-6:30 p.m. at the Knox County Community Center.
Missouri is watching to see whether it meets federal damage requirements to qualify for a disaster declaration. O’Connell said Missouri is not at that threshold at this time.
O’Connell said the past month has been a very active severe weather time in Missouri.
Recent flooding in southeast Missouri has heavily damaged several bridges there. O’Connell said the flooding has caused millions of dollars in damage to some of these structures.
“I know that it’s in the Bollinger County area that they have a number of bridges, I don’t have the specific locations, that have had the approaches washed out. “And that’s significant damage,” he said.
O’Connell said flooding is the leading cause of severe weather deaths in Missouri. He said the overwhelming majority of flooding deaths in Missouri involve people in vehicles during flash flooding.
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