Straight-line winds yesterday (Feb. 20) blew shingles off roofs and knocked down trees and power lines across the county.
At about 7 p.m. last night, about 3,728 homes and businesses throughout the county were without power, an AmerenMissouri spokesman said.
All but about 147 of those customers had power were restored by this morning.
Perhaps the most significant damage was at the Arnold Knights of Columbus building, 1623 Jeffco Blvd, in Arnold where most of the roof was blown off and thrown onto the parking lot.
“It (the wind) peeled it (the roof) back like a sardine can," said Mike Bonnot, the K. of C. building manager. “Three-fourths of the roof was pulled off and landed on the parking lot.”
The heating and air conditioning units on the roof also were thrown off, he said.
Fortunately, no one was hurt at the hall during the storm, Bonnot said.
He said the roof was blown off around 4 p.m.
After the storm, a repairman who was putting a tarp over the roof, fell through it, but he wasn’t seriously hurt.
Bonnot said the K. of C. members are scrambling to get the roof repaired in time for their fish fry season, which begins Friday, March 7.
“We have all our fish fries coming up, and that’s where we get all our money for the things we do,” he said.
The city of Arnold checked out the K. of C. hall and declared it uninhabitable until the roof is fixed, City Administrator Bryan Richison said.
In addition, the hall was without power this morning (Feb. 21).
“Hopefully we can restore power to the freezers where we have all our fish; otherwise we’ll have to get generators to run them,” Bonnot said.
He said the K. of C. expected an insurance inspector to come out today to assess the damage.
The club already had filled two Dumpsters with debris from the damaged roof.
If the repairs are completed in time, a fish fry will be held at the hall on March 7 and then every Friday after that until Easter, Bonnot said.
Arnold Public Works director Ed Blattner said “a lot of limbs and trees were down” across the city, but he wasn’t aware of any other serious damage to homes or buildings.
“It was a bad wind,” he said. “I haven’t seen a wind like that before.”
In Festus, firefighters removed downed trees, including one in the 800 block of Woodrow Street that landed on a car.
No one was inside the car when the tree fell.
Another downed tree was on Valentine Street and a third on South Fifth and Henry streets. After firefighters pushed them out of the way of traffic, Festus crews had the trees cleared away by this afternoon, said Shain Dollar, Festus street foreman.
Warren Robinson, the county’s director of Emergency Management, said the damage in Festus was typical of that around the county.
“We had isolated reports of damage throughout the county, but nothing so severe as the (K. of C.) hall in Arnold,” he said. “We had homes with minor roof damage here and there. We had plenty of trees down and quite a few power lines come down. So, we had quite a few without power last night.”
Robinson said during the storm, there were wind gusts around 60 mph.