Cleanup is underway in parts of southwest Missouri after severe storms moved through Monday night.
The National Weather Service Springfield Office said an EF1 tornado with estimated peak winds of 95 mph was on the ground for about two minutes near Fair Grove. It traveled nearly two miles, uprooting and snapping trees, heavily damaging an outbuilding and causing minor damage to a residence.
A NWS survey team determined that it was straight line winds up to 100 mph that caused damage in Carthage Monday night.
The storm moved into the city from the west at 80 mile-per-hour winds and gained strength over the downtown area.
"It kind of started on the edge of town, and, you know, with some trees and some minor damage and things like that," said Greg Dagnan, Carthage city administrator. "By the time it got to our downtown square, we have several businesses that are pretty severely damaged in the downtown area, and we have lots and lots of city properties damaged."
He said there’s extensive damage to buildings – mainly on the south side of the square, some which are more than 100 years old. Windows and roofs were impacted, which allowed water into the buildings.
The roof was blown off the Carthage Recycling Center, and there’s damage to parks and the city’s golf course.
"We had a really nice lady that Facebook messaged us and said, 'if you're looking for the roof of your recycling center, it's on my roof right now if you need to find it,'" he said.
Dagnan said it will take awhile to get everything cleaned up, but especially for the businesses to reopen. But he’s thankful for the many volunteers who have showed up to help, "organizations and individuals, so we've coordinated those efforts to, you know, try to pair up the volunteers with our citizens and folks that, you know, that really need that help," he said.
Carthage residents who need help cleaning up damage from the storms should contact Memorial Hall in Carthage at 417-237-7050.
