Tuesday morning storms leave rural Missouri community picking up

CARROLLTON, Mo. — One rural Missouri community felt some mighty wind on Tuesday morning.

A thunderstorm delivering rain and high winds left Carrollton picking up trees and power lines all day.

The FOX4 Weather Team reports some winds were measured up to 70 miles per hour. A spokesperson for Carrollton Municipal Utilities confirmed the entire down went dark for about three hours.

Carrollton is the county seat of Carroll County, and sits about 90 minutes northeast of downtown Kansas City.

The storm left 3,500 residents of that small town without power. Carrollton Municipal Utilities Superintendent Clint Mathies said his crews had 90% back online by 2:30 p.m.

The Carroll County Courthouse was closed all day. One employee told FOX4 commissioners were waiting by the door, and sending employees home, since there was no power.

Many businesses in the city’s downtown square closed for the day, too. Large tree pieces are a common sight around Carrollton’s yards.

When one limb fell during the morning hours, it dragged power lines and transformer to the ground outside Kathy Jackson’s downtown home. Jackson said she’s only lived there for three months, and this is the second storm that’s left her home without power. Jackson saw a huge white flash when the transformer blew.

“It’s an inconvenience because it’s warm, but the guys are out here. The crews are good. They got out here this morning after about 10 minutes of that coming down. They had that tree and that electrical pole cleared out,” Jackson said.

When power was restored around 12:30 p.m., the stylists at Ultimate Beauty salon were ready to cut hair. Ivy Mayer was relieved to see the lights shine again.

“We can all get back to work,” Mayer giggled. “We can’t do anything power.”

Mathis also said he expects the remainder of Carrollton’s power customers to have their service restored before Tuesday’s business is over.

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