Despite flooding, Mt. Vernon spared

Torrential rains lead to area deluge
Rising flood waters on Thursday, May 23, blocked off some city streets in Mt. Vernon and caused concern that a power sub-station would have to be shut down, but the city escaped with actually very little damage, Max Springer, city administrator said.
“We were fortunate,” he said. “We had a couple of backups on the sewer … but we really didn’t have any houses flooded with flood water, like you see in the pictures of Tulsa or places where … the river’s up and in the homes. We just had a lot of water. Several streets were blocked for a few hours until the water went down.”
According to the National Weather Service, about eight to 12-inches of rain fell over southwest Missouri last week. The heavy rainfall swelled Williams Creek, causing the flooding. Just outside of the city, Spring River also swelled its banks and made several county roads inaccessible.
 Springer said that Mt. Vernon has actually fared quite well during this year’s storm season
“We were fortunate through the whole storm season, so far,” he said. “We’ve had a (few) high-water issues to deal with, but that’s nothing compared to tornado damage or some wind damage. We’ve got some trees down around there by the business loop … but we’ve not really had any of the substantial damage like some of the communities around us have, like Golden City and Carl Junction, even Miller, when they had the tornado damage there. We’ve been very fortunate, because at any point, we could be one of those cities. So, I’m thankful that we haven’t had to deal with any more than what we’ve dealt with.”
The National Weather Service predicts the likelihood that severe storms will return to the area over the next week.