Reminders of a tornado that landed north of Hillsboro and traveled through Arnold are still visible a year later.
In Arnold, two shopping plazas off Jeffco Boulevard have been demolished, a fireplace store is shuttered and will never reopen, and an Italian restaurant is still waiting to reopen.
And there are still signs of the damage caused by the EF-2 tornado that touched down near Clayton Huskey Road and traveled north along Old Lemay Ferry Road before going through Arnold and into south St. Louis County.
However, county and Arnold officials said there are more signs of recovery than destruction.
“I still drive through a lot of the areas that were impacted by the storm almost on a daily basis,” said Warren Robinson, Jefferson County Office of Emergency Management director. “I have seen significant strides made in recovery. There are far fewer indications, at least in the southern edge of the county, of where the storm passed through.”
The National Weather Service’s St. Louis office said the tornado that swept through Jefferson County was one of five St. Louis area tornadoes that touched down on March 14, 2025.
The tornadoes ranged from EF-1 to EF-3.
The EF scale, which goes from 0 to 5, assigns a severity rating based on wind speeds and damage, with 5 being the most severe. An EF-1 has wind speeds of 86-110 mph; an EF-2 has wind speeds of 111-135 mph; and an EF-3 has wind speeds of 136-165 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
“One year after the tornado struck our community, the city of Arnold continues to recover from this event,” Arnold Police Chief Brian Carroll said. “While the process has at times been slow, as recovery of this scale often is, we are proud of how far we have come and deeply grateful for everyone who played a part in moving our city forward.”
Robinson said the Office of Emergency Management observed nearly 1,000 damaged homes with 24 destroyed and 24 having major damage. He said county residents received just less than $1.1 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Individual Assistance program.
He said there were at least six commercial properties that had minor damage caused by the tornado. He also said three county buildings, 11 county vehicles and some roads, guardrails and signs were damaged, which cost just more than $195,000 to repair.
“There were some homes that were hit especially hard, and you wonder how someone made it through the storm while being inside there,” Robinson said. “It is a blessing that we didn’t have any folks trapped in their homes or rescues needing to be conducted. I just hope and pray that we continue to have that kind of luck.”
According to the Arnold Police, 5,464 of 8,145 residential homes that were inspected were damaged by the tornado. The department said no homes were destroyed, but 56 had major damage, 941 had minor damage and 4,467 were affected.
Arnold Police also said 332 commercial buildings were damaged with five destroyed, 11 having major damage, 53 minor damage and 263 affected.
The estimated cost to repair homes was just less than $87.4 million, and commercial structure repair cost was just more than $12 million. Arnold Police also said the cost to repair public buildings belonging to the city, Fox C-6 School District, Rock Community Fire District and Rock Township Ambulance District was $946,052.
Sarah Turner, Arnold community development director, said the city issued 1,999 permits to repair storm damage through March 4.
According to city records, Arnold issued 3,379 building permits, which included storm repairs and new construction, between March 2025 and this February after issuing 1,299 building permits from March 2024 through February 2025.
Mayor Bill Moritz, who was a councilman when the tornado came through, said he was impressed by the response to the tornado.
“We had an emergency operation center down in the basement of City Hall,” he said. “They did a great job documenting everything that was damaged, coordinating efforts for people who came in to volunteer to help. We saw the best of our city and community at large.”
Tornado damage
Greg King, post commander at Arnold VFW Post 2593, said he was one of about 12 people at the VFW, 2301 Church Road, the night the tornado went through. He said the storm damaged the VFW’s roof, air conditioning and heating units and flag pole.
Post 2593 will hold a flag dedication ceremony at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 14, to thank first responders and to dedicate the new flag pole.
“We were in the farthest, deepest office in the building,” King said. “As we heard the tornado go over our roof, it sounded like a freight train coming through. It was very noisy and loud. When it was over, we went outside and saw the damage. The flag pole was gone. It was across the street.
“One guy jumped into action right away. He went across the street and grabbed the flag. We got the pole off Church Road and onto our grounds.”
Alex Dziuba, owner of the Pasta House in Arnold, said he and the store manager drove through the storm after the phone went dead at the restaurant, 921 Arnold Commons Drive.
“You couldn’t even see on the highway,” he said. “It was hard to drive at 30 mph. We got here just as the tornado passed.”
Dziuba said there were no customers in the building, but five of his employees were still there. He said there was so much water pouring into the restaurant that it sounded like Niagara Falls.
“The next morning, you could see the damage,” he said. “One of the 10-ton (HVAC) units got blown down onto the parking lot. Another unit was hanging over the edge of the roof. Everything on the roof was damaged.”
The restaurant is still closed, and a neighboring business, Fireside Arnold Stove and Fireplace Center, closed permanently on Aug. 12, 2025.
Dziuba said he is still waiting for the cooks’ service line to be built and delivered, and Pasta House cannot reopen without it because that is where the food is prepared and picked up by servers.
“We are just waiting for that one piece of equipment,” he said. “It is a waiting game. It is really hard to do that since we have been doing it for over 11 months.”
Cheryl Hueh, one of the owners of Hotshots Sports Bar and Grill, 131 Arnold Crossroads Center, said she was returning from Las Vegas when the tornado ripped through Arnold.
The sports bar was the scene of a last image from the storm as one of the employees recorded the front door being blown open.
“One of our employees recorded it to show her parents what was going on,” Hueh said. “I am pretty sure it was people outside trying to get inside. I think it helped that the front door and back door were blown open. It kind of relieved some pressure.
“I’m just glad everyone was safe.”
Hueh said she got home on March 15, and at first, she and the other owners thought they would just need to wait for electric wires that were torn from the building to be replaced in order to open.
However, she said as they went through the building, they learned there was more damage. She said the kitchen, office and bathrooms were all torn out and restored before Hotshots was able to open three months after the storm.
“Compared to a couple businesses around us, we were fortunate,” Hueh said. “It does not feel like it has been a year already. It feels shorter. We are happy to be back open. I hope the tornadoes stay away. I am a little nervous about March coming again. I am just hoping we don’t get that again.”
Bill and Susan Casey, who own Casey Exteriors in Arnold, were at their home in Barnhart the night of the storm.
Susan said they had to walk to their former location at 726 Jeffco Blvd. the day after the tornado because sections of the road were still closed.
“When we opened (the door), you saw all of the material from the room,” she said. “It was pretty shocking. Our trailer was across Jeffco. That was crazy, too.”
The former Casey Exteriors location was in one of the shopping plazas that had buildings demolished, but Susan said fortunately she and her husband were already moving the company they started 30 years ago to its current location at 1366 Jeffco Blvd.
“It was fate that the office was ready to go,” Susan said. “We had all of the building done, and Arnold had approved the occupancy.”
Susan said while their building was destroyed, most of the company’s files and its computers were not damaged, so they were able to continue to operate after the tornado.
She said the first six weeks after the storm were very busy, and they had three people answering phone calls eight hours a day.
“We had family come in just to answer the phones,” Susan said. “We couldn’t get the messages fast enough to call them back. That first six weeks were crazy. We were busy the entire summer.”
Recovery
Robinson said he felt the county did a good job responding to the tornado. He also said it helped that FEMA disaster assistance was approved for Missouri residents on May 23, 2025.
“We have great partners with first responders and cities throughout the county, and they did a wonderful job of helping us figure out where we had damages in the county, helping figure out how to get resources to residents, and I think the residents did a fantastic job recovering from the storm,” he said. “We were eventually able to get a declaration on the storm that got some federal money pumped into the county. That took a while, so there was a lot of time there that our residents were working on their own with the limited resources that the county could provide. I think everybody pulled together really well.”
Ron Counts, who was Arnold’s mayor when the tornado came through, said the city having a disaster response team in place helped in the recovering. He also praised how residents responded.
“I can’t say enough about the resilience of our residents,” he said. “There was not a lot of complaining. They were out there getting the job done. Most of the heavy lifting now is done, most people are back to normal.
“A lot of places wouldn’t be able to say that, and I think that had a lot to do with the disaster group we had set up in case of emergencies. I think we are as prepared as you can be for a disaster.”