Shards of glass flew everywhere as Eric Jockel waited out one of Missouri’s worst hail storms.
One of the softball-sized blocks of ice that hit the Springfield area Tuesday measured 4.75 inches (12 cm). The hail killed emus at the zoo, injured some drivers, knocked out power to thousands and damaged hundreds of vehicles and even some planes.
“I’m just glad I got out safe,” said Gokl, whose windshield was shattered while he waited in his car on the side of the highway for the storm to pass, on Wednesday.
Severe spring weather Affects the South and MidwestEmergency management officials said the hailstorm was the worst in Springfield’s history, although it fell short of a state record. Mark Burchfield, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Springfield, said the difference was due to hailstones measuring 6 inches (6.2 inches) tall that were recorded in 2004 near the town of Maryville.
“It’s very rare,” he said of the Springfield storm. “This was a supercell thunderstorm that was able to carry a lot of wind shear and a lot of energy that allowed the hailstone to stay aloft longer.”
At Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, staff tried to move animals inside, including Adam, a 21-year-old female emu. Emus’ natural behavior is to lie down and take cover, EMU spokesman Joey Powell said in an email to The Associated Press.
Adam died from head trauma. Oscar, a 17-year-old flightless bird called Rhea, was struck down by the cold but was receiving painkillers and doing well on Wednesday morning, as the zoo remained closed.
Some of the worst damage was recorded at Springfield-Branson National Airport, about 5 miles (8 kilometers) northwest of downtown.
Dozens of flights were delayed or canceled, and hundreds of vehicles had their windshields or sunroofs smashed, said Ren Loebring, public information officer at the airport.
Some passengers had to be bused about 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the airport in Bentonville, Arkansas, because rental cars were damaged. Airport employees spent three hours covering the most damaged vehicles with donated fabric, Lubering said.
“We think we’re putting 300 or 400 cloths on the cars,” Lubering said. “Expect damage to your vehicle,” the airport warned online.
Nicolette Zangara, spokeswoman for the Springfield-Greene County Office of Emergency Management, said she had a bad feeling early on.
“You could tell by what we saw on the radar that the size of the hail was increasing,” Zangara said. “Then we started taking pictures of some of our neighboring counties, and some of the hail they were getting. From that moment on, we knew it was going to be a bad storm.”
She said some people called 911 to report injuries when hail shattered their windshields, but she didn’t have exact numbers. She said the worst damage appeared to be to vehicles. She said her car was so dented that it resembled the surface of a golf ball.
“The last week of April seems to have been a curse on our area,” she said, noting that the area was hit hard a year ago by spring storms.
Since the hail hit, Gokl has been filing insurance claims. “The gutters on his house have been blown to smithereens” and a crew is heading out to assess how his roof is holding up.
He runs a pizzeria and had a food truck damaged, along with his work trucks and his teenage daughter’s first car, which he bought for her about a month ago.
Gockel is used for storm warnings. Usually, he responds to them by standing on the front porch and watching, rather than taking cover.
“Rarely does anything crazy happen,” he said. “This is the first time I really feel like the actual event rises to the level of a warning.”