DAMAGES MOUNTING FROM RAINS

A bridge was washed out and at least two roads remained impassible in Scott County in the wake of Thursday night's thunderstorms that spawned as many as eight tornadoes, caused power outages and deluged some Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois communities with as much as 6 inches of rain.

Scott County took the brunt of the power from the line of storms that moved into the region from Northern Arkansas. The Scott County Emergency Management Agency still is urging people to travel with extreme caution on secondary roads in the northern and southern ends of the county.

The heavy rains washed out a bridge on County Road 217 off Route A halfway between New Hamburg and Chaffee. Also closed due to flooding is a 3.5-mile section of Route W two miles west of Oran and a two-mile section of Route Z between Crowder and Tanner.

A vacant mobile home between Benton and Kelly High School was lifted from its foundation.

Scott County Emergency Management Director Joe Burton said no injuries were reported in the county. A fire probably caused by a lightning strike ignited a large tree, and many cars were stalled in water.

"We're close to normal," he said. "We're still going to have some roads closed for several weeks and maybe months."

Julie Keys, who lives in Randles near the Cape Girardeau-Scott County border, said the town was an island Friday morning because of the flooding of Route P between Randles and Delta. Her road, the gravel County Road 272, also was flooded.

"I don't know if there was any good way to get out," she said.

Some people with big trucks made it, but those with cars, like Keys, missed a day of work.

Delta school children got the day off from school due to the flooding.

Water was still on the road Friday on Route N near Delta School, on Route NN and on Highway A near Fruitland, Cape Girardeau County Emergency Management Director David Hitt said.

Otherwise, "We came out pretty good," Hitt said.

In Cape Girardeau, firefighters were frustrated by the many drivers who ignored barricades set up to keep cars out of intersections where water was too deep to traverse. "We put them up for safety reasons," said Mark Hasheider, the city's emergency management coordinator. "It was really disheartening."

The heavy overnight rain estimated at about 6 inches in Cape Girardeau caused a basement wall to collapse in a house in the 1200 block of Merriwether.

Cape Girardeau Public Works Director Doug Leslie said crews were out Friday cleaning up storm sewers at 20 locations. New channel improvements made along the LaCroix and Walker creeks helped minimize damage from flooding, he said.

"That was a significant 24-hour event. The channel really helped out a lot."

Thirteen thousand of AmerenUE's 60,000 electric customers were without power during part of the night. About 6,000 customers in the Cape Girardeau area lost power at 6 p.m. due to lightning strikes on transformers. Power to all but about 25 of those had been restored by 8:30 p.m.

"We were fortunate," said district manager Doug Groesbeck. "If it had been out due to high winds and trees it would have been out a lot longer."

Another 4,000 customers lost power in the Charleston and Miner area around 10 p.m. due to lightning strikes.

Lighting also struck the Jackson water tower, causing no physical damage but knocking out the telemetry that enables the water level to be read at the power station. Jackson Public Works Director Jim Roach said a crew was at work on repairing the problem Friday.

In Stoddard County, Emergency Management Director Bill Pippins confirmed one of the tornado sightings himself, a funnel cloud about four miles west of Bloomfield. About 8:30 that night, his office sounded emergency sirens in Dexter and Bloomfield and issued a "take-cover" order at Bloomfield High School, where a basketball tournament was in progress.

Pippins said the estimated crowd of nearly 2,000 filed into the gym's locker rooms for about 20 minutes.

The second wall cloud of the evening was spotted about 10:45 p.m. and touched down briefly northwest of Dexter, Pippins said. The wind destroyed an unoccupied mobile home, damaged a tool shed and snapped a power line.

A number of roads in the county were washed out, but Pippins said, "We were very lucky compared to what Arkansas had."

The level of Wappapello Lake rose five feet overnight. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reportedly is going to pull the level down four feet by discharging water into the St. Francis River.

"We do no anticipate any down river flooding, but it will be closely monitored," Pippins said.