Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Denver Tornado Destroys Home

As the Sheridan Express was about to go to press last Monday evening, several tornadoes hit the area. Three funnel clouds were spotted south of Sheridan and one west of Parnell near the junction of E and NN. That prompted sirens to go off in Grant City and Allendale. Residents of the WCCC were moved into the hallways in accordance with emergency plans; Administrator Bev Miller said that they were very cooperative and took it better than the staff did.

The sirens were barely audible from the Public Library; patrons were evacuated to the locker room at around 5:00 for 15 minutes. Dave Gilland, who lives one mile west of Grant City, said that he did not hear the sirens. The sirens were not sounded in Sheridan. Grant City was spared a hit from the storm; there were torrential rains and high winds during the time the tornado warning was in effect.

A funnel cloud touched down east of Denver one mile south of the Rock Creek Baptist Church building that was recently restored. It blew out all the windows and moved an entire house off its foundation; it also blew down a shed and knocked down a bunch of trees in a timber half a mile north of the house. The historic church building as well as the Denver Schoolhouse were spared. Later that evening, tornado warnings were issued for Harrison and Mercer Counties and the storm wreaked havoc in Mercer County as well.

The storm was also associated with heavy lightning, with the KAAN announcer reporting that there were all sorts of marks on the lightning tracker. Lightning started a fire and damaged a house belonging to Terry Oglesby of Maryville; the Ravenwood Fire Department responded to that call.

Following Monday's storm, the weather turned unseasonably chilly by Wednesday; highs were only in the 60's with light rain that day. Temperatures were expected to warm up again after July 4th.

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