A windstorm five years ago that swept through the Midwest and produced 23 tornadoes in Missouri is the topic of a free lecture in Salem.
On May 8, 2009, thousands of trees were toppled in the Ozarks. Power was out for more than two weeks in some areas. The storm covered 1,000 miles.
In weather terms, the storm was a derecho –– defined as a major storm with straight line winds. But the May 2009 derecho was different. In addition to the accompanying tornadoes, it had a center that rotated like a tropical storm. It was so powerful that the National Weather Service later nicknamed it the ‘Super Derecho.’
While newspapers reported on this storm –– floods, tornado damage and seven deaths over four states –– the magnitude of forest damage was not well covered, nor was it immediately understood. The brunt of the storm hit sparsely populated, heavily wooded areas and some of the worst timber damage was inaccessible, deep in the Mark Twain National Forest.
A newly published history piece examines the impact of the Super Derecho on Ozark forests and the people who manage them and who depend on them: landowners, loggers, forest industries and natural resource agencies.
Authored by environmental writer Denise Henderson Vaughn, “Derecho! The forgotten windstorm that changed the Ozarks,” appears in Forest History Today and may be accessed online at: http://www.foresthistory.org/Publications/FHT/Index.html. Vaughn will present the May 8 slideshow describing the derecho’s impacts on forests and people. The event will be held at 7 p.m. at the Ozark Natural and Cultural Resource Center, 202 S. Main, Salem, which is only a few miles north of some areas damaged by the storm as it traveled through Dent, Texas, Shannon, Reynolds, Iron, Madison and Bollinger counties.
Vaughn’s research on the derecho and the upcoming lecture are both sponsored by Pioneer Forest, headquartered in Salem.
For more information, contact Vaughn at dhvaughn@socket.net or call at 417-934-6673 or 417-247-7874.