Tornadoes tear through Kansas City area

Several tornadoes touched down in the Kansas City area Monday evening and vehicles were caught up in floodwaters that the storms produced. Some areas saw more than five inches of rain in a short period of time.

One tornado was reported near Liberty while a second one was reported at K-10 and Evening Star Road in Johnson County. The National Weather Service will have to determine how many tornadoes were in the Northland after multiple reports.

Tornado warnings were issued for most of the counties in the immediate Kansas City area. No serious injuries were reported.

The storms produced heavy rains while high winds downed trees and power lines.

“It was chaotic. You had sirens going off,” Weston resident Chris Spears said. “There was so much rain you couldn’t see five feet. The roads were covered in water. You couldn’t do anything.”

A tree collapsed on the roof of a house in Liberty where the family was huddled in their basement due to the tornado warning. Numerous trees were knocked to the ground in Eudora. The Wal-Mart near Liberty saw damage including windows being blown out.

Steve Pankey said trees snapped in half during the high winds, including the one that crashed through a basement window.

“We heard a really loud crack,” he said. “Glass went everywhere.”

He said he and his family members were shaken up by the chaotic scene, but grateful everyone is OK. They covered up the window and made repairs as best as they could Monday night.

In Eudora, multiple tree limbs crashed onto a house where a man, his wife and their baby daughter sought shelter in a crawl space. The family believes straight line winds or lightning caused the damage.

Lightning caused a fire at the Pointe Royal Apartments on 123rd Terrace in Overland Park. This occurred about 6 p.m. Monday. The homes of two families saw significant damage.

Vehicles were flooded in numerous parts of the area including the Northland, Leavenworth County and Independence. Numerous roads are closed in Platte County.

“People should avoid driving through high water on the road,” Platte County Sheriff Mark Owen said in a statement. “The depth of floodwaters can be hard to judge and water can quickly rise becoming very dangerous. Drivers should also be aware that wet road conditions can cause vehicles to hydroplane.”

Tow truck drivers had to wade through waist deep water to pull vehicles from floodwaters in the Northland and Jackson County near the Missouri River. People were rescued from high waters near Interstate 435 and 23rd Street on Kansas City’s east side. A gas station parking lot looked like a lake with water almost halfway up the gas pumps.

The dugouts at Kauffman Stadium were flooded from the heavy rains.

The Royals game versus Tampa Bay was postponed due to weather. The teams will play a doubleheader on Tuesday. The first game will start at 1:10 p.m. and the second game will start at 7:10 p.m.

In Weston, the heavy rain took out a bridge on Humes Road just off Goodlet Road. The bridge leads to about a half dozen homes, which are on a dead end. The force of the floodwaters shifted the bridge.

Kathy Crosby, who lives in one of the homes, said she is use to heavy rains closing the bridge, but she said Monday’s storms were the worse.

“It was just like a river going across the road,” Crosby said. “And then we came back a little bit later and it had gone down but there was a huge hole in the road there. Just one little narrow path that you could walk across.”

Municipal crews fixed the bridge temporarily but didn’t think it can withstand more rain. The mayor is asking residents to move a vehicle to the town side of the bridge. After that, he said, they can walk to their vehicles to be able to leave the area.

The city plans to get estimates on Tuesday from companies interested in making the emergency repairs.