‘Please Lord, help us'; Benton County residents start pickup after Monday's severe weather

Yahoo

21-05-2025

BENTON COUNTY, Mo. — 'It was a shock,' Barbara Livingston says, standing on her lawn, surrounding by debris.
Livingston was home Monday night when a severe storm passed through her subdivision, Red Bud South, pummeling the neighborhood.
'I walked out and I said, 'oh my gosh', you know, I've never seen this before other than on the news somewhere, but to see it physically, emotionally, it was devastating,' Livingston said. 'Neighbors were walking around here checking on everybody.'
Livingston says the sound of the storm pushed her to pray.
'I could hear the banging and I was like 'Please, Lord, help us,' you know, just praying, and when I came out, I was like, 'okay, the house is here'. I can get through the house because I thought going up the stairs, what would I find? I came out, found all kinds of limbs in my yard and the tree almost on top of the car, but that can be replaced,' Livingston said.
As a mother of many children, her maternal instincts took over, because even though her neighborhood was under a tornado warning Monday night, and mother nature was wreaking havoc on her neighborhood … she was reaching out to her kids to make sure they were fine.
'I'm worried about my kids in Kansas City, Pittsburg, and Springfield and checking with them, but they can't reach us because we have no power, no satellite. I sent them texts and they got him this morning and they were like, oh my gosh, are you okay?' Livingston said.
Just down the road, Mark MacKay, who doesn't live in the neighborhood year-round, saw damage to his car port and part of his garage.
'Last night, a tornado rolled through here. We weren't here. We live in Lee's Summit, but we came down here and heard about it from all my friends down here. Unfortunately, we had a little tree fall on the carport, not much left of it, squished a Sea-Doo or two, but getting it cleaned up and moving on,' MacKay said.
MacKay says this isn't the first time a severe storm has impacted his home.
'There was another big tornado like this happened back in 2004. We've had this cabin was built in 1980. So it's been around and survived two of these tornadoes now. So, we're lucky as far as that goes,' MacKay said. 'Hopefully we're done with tornadoes for another 20 years or so.'
Jessica Mayfield, the Director of Benton County's Office of Emergency Management and 911 center says this was a storm — a storm with no injuries or deaths reports — that she's never seen before.
'As far as seeing physical damage, this is the first time that I've been out to actually lay eyes on what has been done in the county,' Mayfield said. 'The amount of damage that has been done, a lot of debris down, but many houses were spared.'
Mayfield says the City of Warsaw is encouraging people to drop off debris.
'The City of Warsaw has graciously agreed to allow residents in Benton County to take their storm debris, trees, limbs, brush all of that to the compost in Warsaw, off of Industrial Drive in the Industrial Park, and they will be open today until June 6, seven days a week, and they're doing 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for anybody that wants to drop their debris off there,' Mayfield said.
For MacKay and Livingston in their neighborhood, they've noticed residents helping out, but according to people Ozarks First spoke with, that's just the Benton County way.
'Definitely the Benton County Way, where community comes together. It's community first, definitely Benton County,' Mayfield said.
'I'm just grateful for this neighborhood. We are here for each other,' Livingston said.
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