Tornado slams Iron County school

Annapolis, Mo. (KMOX) - School's out for summer, one day early, in southern Iron County.

Thursday was supposed to be the final day of classes at South Iron Elementary in Annapolis, but Mother Nature had other ideas.

Cristie Ayers is the South Iron school superintendent. She spoke with KMOX News after assessing Wednesday's EF-1 tornado damage, "Our cafeteria, a big ol' hole was put in it. With all the rain there's lots of flooding in there. On the elementary school side we have like eight classrooms where the roof was raised up and put back down. There's shattered glass. Took out some exterior walls."

Ayers gives a big thanks to community members for pitching-in late Wednesday and into Thursday to help clean up the storm debris.

As for how to proceed with the buildings, Ayers says, "We have engineers coming in to give us an idea. We're working on getting architects in. At this point it's so early. We're just getting everything closed up, so if it happens to rain again, we won't have any more damage."

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