MISSOURI, USA — Some residents of St. Louis and St. Charles counties spent Father’s Day in the dark, inside, or in the heat, outside. High winds Saturday afternoon and evening left them without electricity or cleaning up storm damage.
In the Chesterfield Outlets known as The District, power appeared to have been restored Sunday morning. While some stores there don’t open until noon Sundays, the lights were on, ready for retail.
Debris in the parking lot provided testimony to the weather that knocked power out Saturday night, forcing retailers to close early and storefronts to go dark.
John Holmes and his family were on their way to Top Golf.
“So, we are just hanging out, waiting for our turn,” said Holmes. “Power is fully restored at Top Golf.”
Along Summer Lake Drive in Chesterfield, Tim McCarthy spent Father’s Day working in the heat at his mom’s house.
“I mean, it was bad,” said McCarthy, speaking of Saturday’s severe weather. “I wasn’t here at the time, but I was getting phone calls and hearing about severe winds. You can tell from damage in the neighborhood.”
Roberta McCarthy said: “I have a deck with an awning, and I was afraid I was losing the awning, the way the wind seemed to be coming through. It was the worst I’ve really seen it.”
Austin Rezendes, owner of Crab Tree Service, described the work his crew was doing on Queensboro Drive in St. Peters.
“A quarter of this Bradford pear came down and landed in the neighbor’s driveway,” said Rezendes, “and the customer’s biggest concern was if another storm came through, this part would land into the house, and we don’t want that.”
Crab Tree Service saw the lightning in the sky over St. Charles County on Saturday night and recognized a business opportunity.
“We posted on social media last night after the storm," Rezendes explained. "I had a tree in my personal yard that came down, and we saw a lot of trees down, so we put it on our Facebook page and got a lot of work out of it.”