Wind gusts up to 64 mph during the severe thunderstorm Sunday night blew tree limbs onto power lines, causing outages to more than 6,000 customers in parts of five counties.
"A large tree fell over a 3-phase line on Willow Street, knocking out power to 600 customers," said Bill Bach, general manager of Municipal Utilities in Poplar Bluff, Mo. "Power was restored in one hour."
Walmart was affected, but a generator was automatically activated so the supercenter could continue operations. Willow Street is south of Walmart.
"We also had scattered outages throughout the city," Bach said.
Stan Estes, general manager of Ozark Border Electric Cooperative based in Poplar Bluff, reported 5,450 customers lost power in Carter County, Ripley County, northern Butler County, southern Wayne County and western Stoddard County.
"We had a larger portion back on within 3-4 hours. We expect to restore power to the remaining 200 customers by noon today," Estes said this morning.
Falling tree limbs snapped lines and broke crossarms and poles, according to Estes. He also said lightening caused some outages.
Broken poles were reported off of Highway 67 north of Poplar Bluff, Highway B east of Poplar Bluff, the Lost Creek area north of Wappapello, Mo., and around Fagus, Mo.,
"A large tree limb broke the crossarms on a pole, knocking out power at Tamaro Oaks," Estes said. This subdivision is north of Poplar Bluff.
Poplar Bluff Street Department crews worked throughout the night to remove 15 trees from the streets.
"Twelve of the trees blocked streets," superintendent Jeremy Grable said. "We had limbs down all over the city."
Cleanup work continued throughout this morning.
Butler County Highway Department crews removed limbs from county roads.
"We had four roads blocked," superintendent Bill Taylor said. "As far as we know, everything has been cleaned up."
A motorist escaped injury when a tree fell on a vehicle on Highway B at the John Deere dealership east of Poplar Bluff, according to Taylor. No report was available from the Highway Patrol. A tow truck removed the vehicle.
Missouri Department of Transportation crews removed several trees and limbs from state roads, according to Wade Lacey, maintenance supervisor in Butler and Wayne counties.
"Some roads were blocked," Lacey said.
A carport was reportedly flipped over and a front porch blew off a mobile home in Harviell, Mo.