KSHB 41 reporter Lily O’Shea Becker covers Franklin and Douglas counties in Kansas. Share your story idea with Lily.
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Kearney, Missouri, residents cleaned up debris Friday after Thursday night's storm caused damage to trees and fences across the southeast part of town.
“We heard a big boom, and we were in the basement," 10-year-old Macie said Friday. "After the wind calmed down, we came outside to look at the damage.”
Macie has lived in Kearney her whole 10 years of life, so she knows what to do during a Midwest storm.
“Normally we just hang out in my sister’s room, which is down here in the basement, but my dad was like, ‘There’s going to be a few minutes of really hard wind,’ so we went to the laundry room," she said.
That is when Macie said she heard a tree fall in her backyard.
"We're just glad it didn't fall on the house," she said.
Macie's trampoline was thrown sideways and the fence in her backyard was knocked over.
“Originally, it was tied to the ground, so we have no idea how it got up there," Macie said of her trampoline. "It’s just kind of crazy.”
Just around the corner, Trenton Mooney had minimal damage to his roof, gutters and a ding on his car. Tree limbs were scattered across his yard.
“If one of those branches would have been 10 feet over, it’s going through our bedroom, our ceiling, everything. So, I felt grateful it wasn’t worse," Mooney said.
Mooney planned to saw the tree limbs on Friday and take them to Kearney's Recycling and Compost Center.
RELATED | Kearney opens drop-off site for storm debris cleanup
That is where resident Bob Dyke was dropping limbs off from his yard.
“We’re lucky we got a place we can haul our stuff," Dyke said.
Beside him were two men with a local air conditioning company, helping neighbors clean up debris for free.
“This is a nice place to live," Dykes said. "Kearney people help each other here.”
People like Maci, whose school closed Friday because the storm knocked out its power. While she described her backyard as a disaster, she was quick to help her neighbors.
“It’s probably going to take awhile with only a few people helping, so we thought if we help, it would go faster," Macie said.
On Friday evening, the National Weather Service confirmed an EF0 tornado struck Kearney on Thursday.
The tornado had an estimated peak wind speed of 85 mph and a maximum path width of 100 yards, according to a damage survey from NWS.
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