Taney County flooding damages businesses, roads in the area

TANEY COUNTY, Mo. — Flooding has caused damage to homes, businesses and roads in Taney County on Wednesday.

Across from the Branson Landing on Highway 76, MoDOT crews are trying to fill in part of a roadway that collapsed, reducing the highway to one lane and causing serious traffic delays.

Right now, the FEMA shelter at the Hollister Middle School has opened for anyone needing to relocate due to the flooding. Several MoDOT trucks have passed through as they try to fill in the collapsed roadway on Highway 76.

“You could see on the water line where it was where we were preparing from previous floods,” said White. “But yeah, there’s at least two and a half feet up.”

Stephen White owns Pops, Painting and Drywall. He says he got the call around 7:30 a.m. that the water was starting to rise.

By the time he got in, it had gotten worse.

“He watched the trailers float down and he came in to try and move stuff, but the water was already over his boots,” White said. “So wasn’t a whole lot to be done.”

White says it’s sad to see how many businesses were affected by the water and says it will take multiple days just to assess the damage done.

“That dump trailer was parked right there on that concrete pad and it got up, you know, up to here and it floated the dump trailer,” said White. “It’s underneath that truck down there. And then that gray box trailer. It was sitting right next to the dump trailer and it’s sitting in the trees over there. Their shop got destroyed as well. It’s some good damage.”

Kelly Ellis works at Rags to Riches. She says it didn’t take long for the water to rise. Before she knew it, the water was waist-high.

“When you open the door, things started coming out,” Ellis said. “So we got the computers out, the flash drive. His daughter got all that out and everybody came in. We got files out, we got things that we could actually get out, you know, that were important. And then we had to wait for it to die down To be able to do this right now.”

Ellis says this isn’t the first time she has experienced something like this.

“Next, we just keep on going. We got all the customers’ stuff ready to be redone and we just rebuild like we always do,” said Ellis.

The Branson Fire Department also gave an update on areas in Taney County affected by flooding.

The first floor of the City Hall was flooded, but it did not affect operations. Some of the city parks are also closed today due to weather, including Lakeside RV Park.

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