JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The day after violent tornadoes ripped through parts of Missouri, authorities in the Jefferson City area and other parts of the state sifted through debris and swept the most devastated residential areas searching for people in need of aid.
About two dozen people were reportedly injured when the “wedge” tornado — which looks wider than it is tall — ripped through the capital at 11:43 p.m. Wednesday. The twister left a 3-square-mile trail of destruction. Authorities had received reports of collapsed apartment complexes and shredded mobile homes. People called to say they were trapped in their homes. Yet, there were no reported fatalities.
Earlier in the night, tornadoes flew around southwest Missouri, near the Oklahoma border, setting off alarms in Joplin, where on the same date eight years earlier a tornado killed 161 people. Tornadoes caused damage in nearby town of Carl Junction and landed a deadly blow in the town of Golden City, where three people were killed. The Missouri State Highway Patrol identified the victims as Kenneth Harris, 86; Opal Harris, 83; and Betty Berg, 56. Berg’s husband, 56-year-old Mark Berg, also suffered serious injuries in the storm, Ozarks Firstreported.
We were very fortunate last night that we didn’t have more injuries than what we had, and that we didn’t have more fatalities across the state,” Gov. Mike Parson (R) said at news conference.
President Trump tweeted that Missouri residents are “strong and resilient."
The destruction in Jefferson City is the latest in a week of severe storms across the central United States. There were more than 60 tornado reports and nearly 400 river gauges in the region had exceeded flood stage as of Wednesday, resulting in several deaths and inundated communities, The Washington Post’s Jason Samenowreported.
Across Jefferson City on Thursday, the power was out, the gas had been turned off and dazed residents wandered the streets, stepping around the fallen trees that now obstructed their neighborhood streets.
In the center of East Dunklin Street, a windblown Mickey Mouse stuffed animal sat soaking wet. Twenty yards away was a home with no roof. Fallen power lines draped the pavement, and an uprooted cross walk sign lay on a front lawn. Broken windows outnumbered intact ones.
“It’s devastation right now,” Jerri Bowles, who lives in the state capital, said Thursday. “Jefferson City hasn’t had a tornado in many, many, many years, and we all had this false sense of security that tornadoes just don’t happen here. So last night we had our eyes opened.”
Before midnight Wednesday, the National Weather Service had urged Jefferson City residents to “shelter now!” as the tornado moved at 40 mph through the central Missouri region and shot debris about 13,000 feet into the air.
Eric Wright of Jefferson City took refuge in his basement as the tornado went by, but not before he caught a glimpse of the storm.