Strong storms are a common thing in southwest MO, but rarely ever happen near Crowder. On April 4th at 7 pm a strong storm came through Southwest MO damaging parts of Crowder College and a few facilities around the area. The damage at Crowder included damage to both of the ball fields, downed trees, and skylight damage in Elsie Plaster Community Center. There was also vehicle damage to some of the Crowder transportation vehicles.
When the storm came through, students were sent to Davidson Hall to take shelter.
Mark Aubuchon, Campus Life Director, was one of the staff who was rounding up students. “Around 7 O’clock we received word that there was a tornado warning on campus. As part of our job we had to get all of the dorm students evacuated over to Davidson Hall, which is a FEMA shelter. Once we got over there we told students that they needed to stay inside for their own protection. Shortly after we arrived the power shut out, but Davidson Hall is equipped with a back up generator, so luckily the power was on. We were in there for about 45 minutes or so.”
Jilberto Alejo, Construction Management Major, was one of the students at Crowder during the storm. “So I was at my dorm doing homework and around 7 p.m. the RA’s showed up and told us to evacuate to Davidson Hall where we waited out the warning.”
“I’ve just been going around the campus looking at damage. There’s quite a bit of tree damage, roof damage, and damage to the ball fields,” says Officer Hall, who’s stationed at Crowder. “Back behind the campus where the national guard base begins, there were a couple of really nice buildings that had been built back there recently that are now destroyed. So, actually here on campus we were very lucky, the worst of it seemed to go around us.” After the storms volunteers helped clean everything back to its previous state.
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