This is neither complete nor comprehensive, but a combination of tornadoes, straight line winds and heavy rains over the Missouri Ozarks from May 7 to May 9 has left portions of the area battered and trying to dry out in the face of new storms expected for this week.

Jeff Fulk, pastor of Shannondale Community Church at Timber, reports being out of electric for several days now, with damage sustained to the camp showerhouse, the camp van, and the basketball court. He also reports significant wind damage in Salem. Most regional electrical outages are in rural areas where restoration will be slow.

Jim Barlow reports that his daughter, who lives in Fredericktown, was at work Friday when “the roof came off”. She was unhurt, but shaken up, according her dad. He headed down there Sunday to help with the cleanup.

A report Sunday from Eleanor Hines, a resident of the Baptist Home in Ironton, and long time family friend, said that facility was running on generator power only, and that large branches were down everywhere.

Tara Flynn, naturalist at Onondaga Cave State Park, reported that the campground was under 8 feet of water on Sunday, but the park did not sustain a lot of wind damage. Rain amounts over the region ranged from a three-quarters inch in 24 hours with high winds over the high Ozarks, with amounts up to 3 inches both to the south along the Arkansas border and Bootheel, and in a band across the state between I-70 and I-44 along the Ozark border counties. We received 1.75 inches here on my deck in Pacific, Franklin County.

With already high levels on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers (all the Missouri wing dikes between Jefferson City and St. Charles were submerged on Thursday, and that was before the rain) the lower Meramec River is over flood stage from the Mississippi upstream to Eureka, with roads in the low-lying areas flooded. With no more rain, the Meramec is expected to crest on Tuesday, but more rain is expected here Wednesday.

We’re sure many of our neighbors across Traveler Country are in the same, similar or even worse boats.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Outdoor News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.