By Jeff Lehr
jlehr@joplinglobe.com
NEOSHO, Mo. — The National Weather Service deems the strong winds Thursday afternoon that suddenly struck Neosho a microburst.
The high winds that hit the town about 4:15 p.m. during a day of stormy weather tore the roof off the evidence barn at the Neosho County Sheriff’s Department, downed power lines, tipped over a tractor-trailer and brought some trees down.
Meteorologist Andy Foster, with the NWS office in Springfield, said a storm survey team that studied the aftermath of the high winds determined that a microburst caused the damage.
“Probably up to 70 mph, just going by the damage that was there,” Foster said.
Deputy Chief Mike Eads of the Neosho Fire Department said the winds brought a tree down on a house on Patterson Street.
Eads said that a storage trailer on city public works department property along North College Street also was blown over onto its side.
Firefighters were called to stand by at the intersection of North College Street and Morrow Avenue, where a transformer and power lines were brought down, the fire chief said. The Missouri Department of Transportation closed off the street until a utility crew could get the lines back up, he said.
David McCracken, the town’s police chief, said the high winds only lasted about four to five minutes. He said the evidence barn at the Sheriff’s Department may have been the most visible casualty of the microburst.
“It had been raining off and on, and then all of a sudden, we just had a very hard-blowing rain,” Capt. Richard Leavens of the Sheriff’s Department said.
He said the winds tore the barn’s peaked roof and trusses off, but a second flat roof beneath kept the building’s contents safe and secure for the most part. The county stores some maintenance equipment in the building along with evidence seized in law-enforcement cases.
Leavens said some water got into the barn down a wall.
“But it doesn’t look like any evidence got damaged,” he said.
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High winds whip Neosho
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