Sirens sound, but Columbia spared storm damage

After spawning a reported tornado in Sedalia, severe thunderstorms rolled east into the Columbia area Thursday evening without causing significant damage.

Emergency sirens sounded in Columbia after National Weather Service radar at 9:17 p.m. indicated strong rotation in a thunderstorm nine miles west of Rocheport. After the storms moved through, Scott Patterson of the 911 Joint Communications Center said there were scattered reports of hail in Boone County. Stacey Swon of the Boone County Sheriff’s Department said the only storm damage she was aware of was a toppled tree along Route Z and part of a tree down at Richland and St. Charles roads.

Preliminary storm reports from the National Weather Service said a tornado touched down at 8:41 p.m. in the Sedalia area, which had already been hit hard this month by a March 12 twister that damaged or destroyed more than 100 homes.

Pettis County Presiding Commissioner Rusty Kahrs said he had no confirmation that a tornado touched down in Sedalia. The worst of the storm affected the southwest part of Pettis County, then cut up the western edge of the city, Kahrs said.

At 10 p.m., Kahrs said there had been one confirmed injury in the Sedalia area, but he didn’t believe the injury was life-threatening. He had no additional information about the person or their condition.

“Several power lines are down across the roadways,” Kahrs said.

Officials at the Pettis County Emergency Management Agency said employees were in the field collecting damage information; the Pettis County Sheriff’s Department said it was still collecting damage reports.

The Howard and Cooper County sheriff’s departments had not receieved any reports of damage or injuries related to the storms about an hour after it affected those areas.

To the east, the Callaway County Sheriff’s Department said there was an unconfirmed report of a tornado between Kingdom City and Fulton but there was no structural damage.

The National Weather Service reported that a trained spotter saw a tornado at 7:15 p.m. between Savannah and Fillmore in northwest Andrew County, but a dispatcher with the Sheriff’s Office said that could not be confirmed. The weather service was relayed information from law enforcement that said the Andrew County tornado destroyed four homes, a shed and caused minor injuries to four people.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.