Who around here doesn’t remember the massive tornado outbreak of January 7, 2008? The above video shows the first tornado of the evening in Monett, MO.
One would be led to believe the good Lord was experimenting with various types of severe weather over our region because of how many tornadoes (SEVENTY-FIVE OF THEM) touched down over January 7-8, 2008.
I had made the decision to travel that night — sorry Mom, I should have stayed at home and rode out the storm there with you — and was caught in Marshfield at Misty and Omar’s house. Hey when someone offers you free food, YOU GOTTA EAT, right?
I should have turned around when I saw the sky turn a vomit green in front of me. I’m not kidding. I was driving down US-60 eastbound through Rogersville when the face of the clouds began to change, and I seriously got scared.
Turns out that Republic (where Mom and Dad live) and Marshfield were both affected by tornadoes. I think there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-60 warnings that went out that night, starting around 5 PM and never really ending until daylight the next morning. After that storm system passed us it went on to wallop Illinois, Wisconsin and the like.
It was really eerie turning to every local TV station and seeing a constant radar loop, with local weathermen working around the clock to inform everyone and also receive reports over amateur radios and scanners in the background. Definitely a surreal evening.
And then there were the tornado sirens. Good Lord I hate those demonic-sounding life-savers. In Marshfield they sounded off every ten minutes or so and made for a sleepless evening and night — until the one on O&M’s block went kaput and the Marshfield police drove around with their sirens on to warn everyone of the tornadoes.
I hated that evening, to be honest.
Mom and I took a drive the next day and snapped photos of Republic Elementary School III, which had its roof torn off and insulation spread everywhere within three to four miles. A couple local businesses were destroyed, there was sheet metal everywhere and a few places were just a mess. Just a couple streets down from the house, strong straight line winds uprooted a tree and even a fence.
In Springfield, the Krispy Kreme sign wilted and fell onto Chestnut Expressway, Harry Cooper Supply Company further down the road had its warehouse damaged, and the Springfield Public Schools bus barn was roughed up. Plus, the ‘nader twisted up a billboard on Glenstone Avenue pretty badly.
Republic and Springfield didn’t have it as bad as Strafford, though. An EF3 hit there in the dead of night, and one elderly woman died up there when her house was literally lifted off the ground and slammed back down (I think there were two other fatalities as well). It was sad to hear there was a fatality, but there was comfort when family members shared with the media that they weren’t angry or distraught — because they knew she had gone to be with the Lord.
Even though it all could have been so much worse, I still don’t want to be caught in anything like that again. I’ll take the floods in the Northwest any day, because at least you know what’s coming.
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