County gets through mid-week storm

After two days of winter weather, Laclede County has emerged from the snow. A group of county and road officials, law enforcement and community members chimed in on how the county fared during the snowfall. The county’s Office of Emergency Management Director Randy Rowe said the county was fortunate in the amount of snow it received. While the City of Lebanon received four and a half inches of snow, some pockets of the county received eight to ten inches of snow. “It could have been a whole lot worse,” Rowe said. O.E.M. began monitoring the weather on Monday and continued to stand by at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, relying on the National Weather Service. The department stood down on Wednesday at 10 a.m. and then back up briefly at 3 a.m. During this time, it fielded calls and coordinated efforts with other partners. With several vehicle accidents on Tuesday, Rowe noted there was a soft closing of I-44 during this time. In Lebanon, there were several crashes, with one in the vicinity of Walmart cutting off power to commercial businesses and nearby residents for three to three and a half hours. During this time, the City of Lebanon went door to door and offered residents the options to either shelter at the Free Store Ministry or at O.E.M.’s office. Public Information Officer Racilia Tyler of Troop I of the Missouri State Highway Patrol noted that while there were no injury-related crashes in Laclede County specifically on Wednesday, there were 12 non-injury crashes. Tyler further noted there were 84 calls for service on February 18 and 107 calls on February 19 in their whole jurisdiction. On February 18, there was one minor injury crash in Maries County and one minor injury crash in Phelps County. On February 19, there was one serious injury crash in Crawford County. For more on this story, see Saturday's LCR.