No injuries were reported from a tornado that touched down southwest of De Soto at about 7 p.m. June 7, De Soto Rural Fire Chief Tom Fitzgerald said.
According to the National Weather Service in St. Louis, the EF-1 tornado was 4.9 miles long and 300 yards wide and caused damage to a few structures, as well as extensive tree damage. Most of the damage was to Big River Heights Road and Wilson Hollow Road near Hwy. 21.
Fitzgerald said the tornado started between “Mammoth Road and down in that river valley and came up across Hwy. 21 and ended just across Hwy. E at the Sunrise School Road area.”
“But it wasn’t on the ground for that entire path,” he said. “It kind of skipped a little bit, up and down.”
Fitzgerald said 12 buildings were significantly damaged, and eight of those were at Camp Neotez, a church camp located at 6266 Big River Heights Road.
“Thankfully, camp was not in session,” he said. “I thought it was. I thought it was already (in session), which would have put about 70 kids there and that would have been devastating. But the kids weren’t coming in until the next day, which got postponed. We lucked out big time. There’s enough damage down there, we would have had injuries, at least.”
According to a post on the Camp Neotez Facebook page, the organization is preparing to repair and rebuild. It hopes to have a summer camp schedule in some capacity.
“Cabin Two was shifted completely off of its supports and has a huge hole in the roof. Cabin Four has a large tree right through the middle of its roof. Both of these cabins are probably a total loss,” the post said. “Several other cabins, the Craft Cabin and the Steel Building have varying degrees of roof damage. The entire valley is covered in downed trees changing the look of Camp as we know it.”
That night, firefighters from Jefferson County and Washington County went door-to-door in the storm-damaged area to make sure no one was injured, Fitzgerald said.
He said the bulk of damage to structures was in the Big River Heights area, but one house on Wilson Hollow was significantly damaged.
“And after that, it’s really just trees and power lines and stuff like that,” he said.
Warren Robinson, director of the Jefferson County Office of Emergency Management, said the June 7 tornado was technically the third tornado in Jefferson County this year.
The NWS determined an EF-Unknown developed May 19 between Festus and De Soto. It was designated “Unknown” because there was no detectable damage.
In addition, the NWS reported that on March 14 an EF-2 tornado touched down near Clayton Huskey Road north of Hillsboro and went into Arnold. Robinson said 24 structures were destroyed, 24 had major damage, 37 had minor damage and two were affected by the tornado.
On June 7, Jefferson County was at low risk for severe weather and no tornado was expected, Robinson said, adding that the De Soto-area tornado illustrates that low risk doesn’t mean no risk and people should always be weather aware.
Robinson said his office will do what it can to get assistance for the impacted homeowners.