Spring Storm

A severe storm blew through the St. Louis region on Sunday April 2nd. We were at LAX in Los Angeles getting ready to fly home when our neighbor called with the bad news. The mature maple tree in our backyard fell on our roof resulting in some minor damage to a gutter and a few shingles. A Bradford Pear in the backyard was also knocked over. Two very large sections of the privacy fence in the backyard were flattened by the wind. There was some minor damage to a window screen, the ceiling fan on the patio, and the facia around the patio. Thankfully, no significant damage was inflicted on the house itself.

The power was out until around 11:00 Tuesday morning. Major inconvenience! Many of our neighbors lost large areas of shingles from their roofs, trees, limbs, etc. Surprisingly, some of our neighbors houses and yards were completely untouched. Just outside of town to the south west, a large 'shed' or barn was destroyed and scattered across two farm fields. The line of debris led straight to a couple of houses that no longer have roofs.

The weather report on the news tonight confirmed that an F1 tornado with 112 mph winds went through the Highland area. The shopping district in Fairview Heights, which is about 30 minutes south west of Highland and is the largest shopping area in the metro east, was hit badly. An F1-2 tornado with 125 mph winds knocked down a clothing store, killing one customer, and caused so much damage that the mall and most of the major stores were still closed today. We feel we were pretty lucky. The tree is now off our roof and waiting by the road for the chipping service to come take it away. The fence is going to take a little more time to repair.

A big thanks goes out to all of our neighbors who took their time to help cut down the tree and haul it to the curb.

Pictures of the damage are on Flickr. Click on the thumbnails to be taken away...