Menu
Without power, Fort Scott makes the best of things
Without electricity, Fort Scottians of all stripes were making do and trying to clean up from Friday afternoon's thunderstorm.
Stores were handling everything with cash, checks and hand-written ledgers on Saturday. Norman Nation, manager of Heidrick's True Value, said its biggest selling items were flashlights, generators and batteries.
"We're ringing up everything the old-fashioned way. We write it down on a ticket," Nation said, sitting in the hardware store, lit only by sunlight from outside. Luckily, he said, no one "was throwing a fit" about not being able to use credit cards.
Bourbon County Public Information Officer Shane Walker said he couldn't remember a time when power had been down for this long. The only comparable events were an ice storm in 1998 when electricity was out for 24 hours -- and two or three days for others -- and the 1986 flood, but outages weren't as widespread for that.
"It went really smooth. I was really impressed," Walker said of how people handled the lack of power.
Liz Shadden, assistant manager at the Pump 'N Pete's convenience store on South National Avenue, was doing everything with cash and ledger as well. It was the only Pete's store open in town.
Shadden opened the store at 7 a.m. and planned to close at 8 p.m. when it got dark. Customers were unable to pump gas or get fountain drinks. She had some beverages on ice.
"We're doing everything by hand, so if I sell it and they have cash, they can have it," Shadden said.
A severe thunderstorm packing straight-line winds of 70-80-plus mph ripped through Fort Scott Friday afternoon leaving 4,125 Westar Energy customers without electricity and thousands of others who use different providers.
"It was nerve-wracking, I'll tell you what," Shadden said of the weather event.
An undetermined amount of damage was done on and near the Fort Scott Community College campus. Maintenance personnel said part of the roof from the Greyhound Hall dorm wound up flying into the nearby parking lot and beyond, smashing car windows. Electrical conduits, light poles and coverings were also damaged. FSCC Director of Facilities and Operations Joel Ramsey said early Saturday afternoon that every time through the area, personnel found something they hadn't seen before.
All Ramsey and his staff knew before the weather hit was that Bourbon County was under a severe thunderstorm warning.
"We have a TV in the maintenance shop, so we knew something was coming, they just didn't know how bad it would be," FSCC Director of Facilities and Operations Joel Ramsey said.
Rain was blowing horizontally.
"There for a while, you couldn't see nothing it was so black," Ramsey said. "When it was over, we came out to look at the damage and it was like 'holy moly. Look at all the damage."
Student Eiljah Lamb was taping plastic over his back windshield with the help of his mom, Stacie Gibson, in town from Kansas City.
"I was looking out the window. I couldn't see anything and then I heard a boom," and his room was flooded, Lamb said.
A tree fell on Rick and Sylvia Masters' house, where they've lived for about five years. Rick Masters said the residence, located across from FSCC, is owned by Community Christian Church, which is next door. Sylvia is one of the church secretaries.
Most of the damage from the tree was to the living room. The storm also threw one of their garage doors off track. "It shoved the west wall in and had a bunch of water coming in the ceiling, but that's the only room that got damaged," Rick Masters said.
A work day was previously planned for the house at the end of October. Masters was home when the storm hit.
"I was in the south bedroom," he said. "At least I wasn't in the living room. It was scary enough from the south bedroom. It sounded like a clap of thunder just outside the house, but there was something different about it."
"It could have been a whole lot worse," Masters observed.
Walker said winds caused widespread damage to trees, barns and homes. No injuries were reported.
Critical components such as the hospital, nursing homes, water and wastewater facilities had generators and back-up generators. The state also brought generators in from Kansas City and Topeka.
Woods Supermarket had a generator for some of its equipment. Walker said the main problem was residents not being able to get gas.