Some damage reported from weekend storms; fireworks tent demolished

Two storm systems that roared through Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois over the weekend caused only minor damage, according to emergency management officials in the area.

Officials in Cape, Bollinger, Scott, Stoddard and Perry counties in Southeast Missouri said the damage from this past weekend’s storms was not severe. The emergency management officials said there were minor damages reported and limbs from trees down from strong winds.

Stoddard County emergency management director Beau Bishop said the most damage in that county was reported in the Puxico area.

“They had several tree limbs, downed power lines in and around Puxico. I did get a phone call from the Puxico school superintendent. They said that one of their concrete block baseball dugouts got heavily damaged. And (the wind) took a manhole cover up off the street and threw it into a fence. Advance had a couple of calls for some lines down here, and Bell City had one or two calls. They didn’t really get too much there,” Bishop said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, July 4, Ameren Missouri reported power had been restored to most customers in Southeast Missouri, with only two outages in the Delta area.

On Saturday, July 1, about 1,500 customers in Cape Girardeau lost power. Another 300 or so were without power Sunday.

In Cape Girardeau, strong winds heavily damaged a fireworks stand at West Park Mall.

Rick Hoffman of Hoffman Family Fireworks said rain destroyed about $6,000 of inventory, though staff was able to save about two-thirds of the fireworks.

“The other third, yeah, we just lost,” he said. “You know, we’re not going to sell anything that we feel like might have some potential damage due to water.”

A tent covering the fireworks was also damaged, with tent poles snapped and sections of the tent ruined. Hoffman said replacing the tent, which he often rents out, would cost about $12,000.

“The thing that will impact us most is the fact that the tent that went down has been rented about five different times this year. And those individuals are going to have to find different accommodations for a tent,” he said. “We can’t buy a tent at this point. They’re backlogged for about three or four months to get a new tent that would meet our needs.”

Emergency management officials in Union and Alexander counties in Illinois said they did not have storms that caused any damage or received any calls of damage from the gusty winds and storms this weekend.