Funnel cloud makes Chaffee firefighters take cover during Friday fire

Firefighters in Chaffee, Mo., were hit by dual disasters Friday afternoon, battling a house fire in the midst of a thunderstorm that spawned a funnel cloud.

The National Weather Service in Paducah, Ky., now says a tornado might have touched down near Chaffee and Kelso, Mo., as the spring storm dumped golf ball-sized hail in Cape Girardeau and high winds apparently destroyed a mobile home in Chaffee and damaged one in the Oran, Mo., area.

The afternoon fire at 302 Southbrook Drive, the parsonage of a Methodist church's new pastor and his wife, caused severe damage to the garage and the two vehicles inside, according to the Chaffee Fire Department.

Chaffee fire officials say the blaze was well advanced and extending into the attic area when firefighters arrived. The fire was almost out when a large funnel cloud was observed just to the west, forcing firefighters to evacuate the roof.

"It all happened so fast, no one had time take cover," Chaffee fire chief Sam Glency said. "Everyone went toward our engines to take cover."

"We were preparing to go into the basement," said John Sachen, of the Delta Fire Protection District. "We were standing there, looking to the west. We had a visual on it."

The funnel cloud and heavy winds quickly pushed off, and the firefighters resumed their work, officials said.

Quarter-size hail remained on the sidewalk on Main Street after a storm ripped through downtown Cape Girardeau Friday, April 15, 2011. (Fred Lynch)

Glency, who has been with the fire department 17 years, said he's never seen anything like what he experienced Friday afternoon.

"That's the first time I've been hailed on, rained on and we had a funnel cloud while fighting the fire," he said. "All we needed was an earthquake, and we would have had it all."

The weather service said that at about 5:45 p.m. Friday the Scott County emergency management director had notified the agency of a possible touchdown near Chaffee, where a double-wide mobile home was reported destroyed, according to the weather service website. A shed was destroyed and another double-wide was damaged near Oran.

The weather service initially didn't have any confirmed touch downs just after the storm passed through, but calls about damage and a possible tornado on the ground came in later.

The weather service had also received reports of golf ball-size hail in downtown Cape Girardeau and hail 1 inch in diameter in Scott City.

The storm also caused power outages in Scott County. At 6 p.m., Ameren Missouri reported 399 customers without power near Oran and 142 without power in the Benton, Mo., area.

Cape Girardeau assistant fire chief Mark Hasheider said in Cape Girardeau County there were some minor electrical lines down.

"There was a lot of water very quickly at rush hour," Hasheider said. "But it did not appear to create any problems."

One transformer was reported on fire, he said, and firefighters found that it was arcing. Firefighters observed near Fire Station No. 1 on Sprigg Street that hail was large enough to cause damage to vehicles. There were also some sporadic power outages reported, though Hasheider said Ameren Missouri was handling those quickly.

Staff writer Scott Moyers contributed to this report.

mkittle@semissourian.com

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