TORNADO HITS HOUSE, BARNS NEAR CHAFFEE

A tornado roared through a rural stretch of southern Cape Girardeau County and northern Scott County Thursday afternoon, damaging barns and a home.

No injuries were reported.

The tornado was part of a series of severe storms. The bad weather buffeted the Cape Girardeau area Thursday for the second straight day, dumping rain and hail on an already water-soaked region. Nearly 3 inches of rain fell at the city's Public Works building along Kingshighway.

But at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, only about an inch of rain was recorded from just after midnight to 7 p.m.

Several funnel clouds were spotted aloft around 1:30 p.m. Thursday and for a time it appeared as if a tornado might sweep through the southern part of the city.

Public safety officials braced for the worst and Cape Girardeau schoolchildren took cover in school hallways.

Some 46 years ago on May 21, 1949, a twister ripped through the city, killing 22 people, injuring hundreds of others, and causing widespread damage to homes and businesses.

This time, there was no tornado in Cape Girardeau. Heavy rains pelted the area, and city officials worried about possible flash-flooding along area creeks, already backed up with Mississippi River floodwater.

The tornado was spotted near Randles at 1:22 p.m. Thursday.

"There were funnels up and down there for a whole period of time," disaster official Brian Miller said. Miller coordinates emergency preparedness for Cape Girardeau County.

Barns and outbuildings were damaged near Route JJ and County Road 264 near Randles, and a hog barn was destroyed.

A short distance away, the tornado damaged the rural Chaffee home of David Landewee. It also destroyed a barn on the property and a camper trailer in the front yard.

"We saw it coming across the field, sucking up dirt and water," Landewee said.

He and his wife fled to a bedroom closet.

"It got quiet and then glass blew out and the house came apart," he said.

The tornado blew out the windows in the home, and ripped off part of the roof and the back porch.

At the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, weather observer Jerry Canady spotted the tornado shortly before 1:30 p.m.

He said it appeared to be near Chaffee, eight to 10 miles from the airport. "It looked like maybe it stayed on the ground for five or six minutes."

Don Hill, general manager of Capetown RV Sales at Interstate 55 and Airport Road, saw it too.

"It hit the ground and went back up and broke up a little bit. Then it came back down bigger yet and got wide at the bottom," Hill said. "You could see the debris."

As the tornado approached, Hill said, it stopped raining. "It got still as night."

Hill and his employees at the camper trailer dealership were preparing to take cover when the funnel cloud moved aloft.

The tornado wasn't the only severe weather Thursday. High winds and rain swept through the region after midnight. It toppled trees.

At the airport, winds clocked at 70 mph damaged hangar doors and overturned a private, single-engine Cessna.

High winds toppled a tree along Independence Street in front of City Hall, lifting part of the street curb in the process. Some isolated, storm-water flooding was reported on city streets.

Miller said the series of slow-moving storms lasted for an hour or more. "It actually seemed like one great, long thunderstorm."

Marie Dooley and her husband, Earl, were awakened by the early morning storm.

"We just heard a noise and the ceiling was falling in on us in bed," Marie Dooley said.

The storm severely damaged the home on County Road 250 between Delta and Chaffee. It caused lesser damage to two other houses.

"It took all the roof off and all the ceiling fell in on the floor. All the trusses were blown down the road behind a neighbor's house," she said.

The Dooleys left the home and moved into their daughter's home next door.

Thursday morning, about 20 Delta High School seniors came over to help clean up the mess. Two of the Dooleys' grandchildren are members of the senior class.

"They cleaned that house up completely," she said. "We had some neighbors that helped, but those kids did a lot of the work."

Thursday afternoon, Dooley spotted the tornado, a half-mile from her home. The funnel cloud then moved aloft as it headed toward Chaffee.