Friday storms in Morgan County causes house fire and thousands to lose power

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Strong winds and heavy storms Friday night left thousands without power and caused one house to catch on fire.

On Saturday morning, the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives' Statewide Outage Map reported over 2,000 people in Morgan County without power.

Gravois Fire Protection District Chief Dustin Hancock reported that crews responded to around 10 weather-related incidents, including vehicle crashes, blocked roads and downed powerlines.

This included a house fire just north of Gravois Mills after a nearby tree was struck by lightning, catching a house on fire at around 6:40 p.m. Friday.

An ambulance was sent to a nearby station to shelter as six GFPD fire personnel moved to the basement of the home they were responding to. Crews used a ventilation fan and oxygen tanks to manage smoke when inside the home.

The two residents inside the home were able to escape safely, taking shelter at a nearby residence. The storm picked up at around 7:15 p.m. as crews were putting out remaining hotspots of the home.

"I haven't had to do that in my career up until this point," Hancock said. "We kind of talked about it and said like, 'Hey, we can't leave, we've got too much going on here still, and we're not confident that the fire's out, so what we're going to do is we've got a full basement here.'"

There were no reported injuries from fire crews.

Following the storm, local dispatch was also overwhelmed with calls, leading to Hancock routing non-life-threatening emergency calls to his own phone to dispatch teams while area command handled more critical calls.

"We set up an area command post here across the street, utilized a Sunrise Beach as a mobile command trailer, so that was super helpful," Hancock said. "It took some load off of our dispatch center, because they were dealing with Stover and Versailles and everybody else around us."

Residents in Stover were also cleaning up Saturday as more than 600 residents saw outages starting around 8:30 p.m. Friday.

Ameren crews were seen by ABC 17 News in the area starting Saturday morning, with workers expected to continue operations through the night after several trees fell on power lines in town.

"It sounded like a train almost, and then it was just about five minutes, you couldn't see nothing, it was real, real scary," Stover resident Tommy Remington said.

ABC 17 News saw several large trees being broken down and collapsed roofs on a few buildings in Stover.

"My boss's sawmill just down N Road here, it's upside down and the tire shop, Menning's Tire over here, the roof got torn off," Remington said.

Stover Resident Lynette Black was in Versailles with her family when the storm blew through town.

"As we were driving in last night after the storm had passed, it was a very eerie kind of feeling, there was no power in town and everything was very dark," Black said.

Throughout the day Saturday, Black began handing out water bottles, freshly-grilled hot dogs and snacks to first responders, linemen and other residents in the area.

"We've been without power since about 8:30 yesterday evening," Black said. "So nobody is able to cook meals for themselves and this is a way that community members can come and have something that's warm to eat."

Black adds that community members often come together in times like these following storms.

"We have a very tight knit community and everybody's always pitching in to help each other," Black said. "People have come from other towns and are helping just clean up, I've had people from neighboring towns in Cole Camp and Versailles drop off chips and cookies and water."

According to Ameren's website at around 8:45 p.m. Saturday, power in Stover is expected to be restored by 9:30 p.m. Ameren officials however, tell ABC 17 News work is moving slower than expected with multiple downed trees in the area.