Platte County begins cleaning up following Tuesday morning storms

PARKVILLE, Mo. — Tuesday morning winds left their mark in Platte County.

The FOX4 Weather Team says high wind gusts from a morning thunderstorm exceeded 60 miles per hour. The weather event, which was part of a line of storms seen locally, tore down a huge tree in one Parkville neighborhood.

The damage from that severe thunderstorm seems to be isolated to one neighborhood off Main Street. Neighbors said trees fall sometimes when the winds are strong enough in that area. Gusts of 60 miles per hour or greater gave homeowners a thrill as the late morning storm pushed past. Some said the sky went dark and heavy rain fell for a short time.

The large pin oak tree in Barbara House’s yard met its march, as heavy winds caused it to bend and snap. Tree pieces narrowly missed her home and the ones next door.

“I thought, Oh my God. My house is gone,” House said. “I heard this amazing snap. I knew it had to be limbs from this tree. I didn’t think it would be half the tree.”

A crew of public works employees with the City of Parkville put their chainsaws and trucks to work cleaning up the mess. Neighbors down the street said they see toppled trees here from time-to-time.

Mary Daniels, another neighbor, said a tree fell on her family’s house in recent years. It was startling to her how quickly the morning weather event jumped from being a small shower to a full-blown storm.

‘Anytime anything like that happens with somebody on our block, you kind of look up and you say — we’ve all been there together. I hope they know this is the time to gather forces in the community. This is a hard thing,” Daniels said.

The surprising number from the morning weather event is the small amount of rain. The FOX4 Weather Team said less than an inch of rain fell along with this storm. High winds remained until Tuesday afternoon, when gusts were measured at 45-50 miles per hour.

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