HIGH WINDS RATTLE RESIDENTS OF NORTH JACKSON

JACKSON -- Charles Fowler was rudely awakened Wednesday afternoon as a storm cell wielding high winds and heavy rains ripped through the mobile home park he lives in north of Jackson.

"I was sleeping when I heard this roar," he said. "I looked up to see the screens and blinds being pulled out of the windows.

"I didn't know what to do so I just sat there," he said. "I could see my blinds flying around out there with all this other stuff."

Fowler and several other residents of the Weiss Mobile Home Park and Mulberry Acres were shaken by the storm, which rolled through Jackson at about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Brian Miller, emergency operations coordinator for Cape Girardeau County, said tornadoes were observed in several places in the northern part of the county by "qualified severe-weather spotters." Reports of damage to homes near Interstate 55 between the 105 and 107 mile markers flooded the sheriff's department.

But the National Weather Service in St. Charles received no reports of a tornado in the area, a spokesman said.

"We picked up a severe thunderstorm cell in the area just north of Jackson, but no tornadoes," the spokesman said. "That doesn't mean there wasn't a funnel cloud in the area; it just means we didn't hear about it."

Lisa Roe, a resident of Mulberry Acres, said she's pretty sure what she saw across the street from her home was a tornado.

"This cloud just started sucking things up like a vacuum," she said. "I saw the neighbor's mini-blinds sucked right off the trailer, the skirting ripped off another and this dog house just lifted up and taken away.

"It was a total surprise," she said. "The neighbors across the street got scared and left."

Darlene and Ben Dinger, 243 Weiss Lane, spotted the funnel cloud.

"I looked out the back window and saw the neighbor's picnic table flying about 6 feet up in the air," she said. "It was just spinning around and around. And then all the sudden it came back down."

One mobile home was picked up off its cinder-block foundation and moved a few feet to the east. The residents were not home at the time, but neighbors saw the winds move the home.

"I looked out my front door and could see the wind coming through the trees," said Pam Eddleman of 211 Cedar Lane. "Then I saw the trailer leaned almost all the way up on its backside. It looked like it was going to be knocked right down.

"I shut the door then," she said. "I just waited for it to be over."

Mike Kester, 135 Oak Lane, helped Fowler collect his screens and blinds after the storm passed.

"The best thing about (the storm) is that it happened so quickly," he said. "Just as we were starting to get scared, it was over."

The storm also damaged road signs along Interstate 55 and threw a couple of sawhorses from a construction site near the Dairy Queen about 100 yards.

But the fury of the storm ended almost as quickly as it had begun.

"I guess the storm just up and decided to move on," Eddleman said. "I was getting out of the trailer, though -- you better believe it."