Cindy Hopkins packed two desk drawers filled with personal papers into her car some of the belongings she was able to salvage after a tornado ripped the roof off her mother's home.
The tornado one of four that hit the Kansas City area Thursday night and Friday morning damaged the duplex where Hopkins' mother, Ann Johnson, lived in the suburb of Gladstone.
"The ceiling actually came down on top of her while she was in bed," Hopkins said.
The 74-year-old woman was able to roll out from under the collapsed debris but cut her foot on glass from a shattered window. A neighbor who heard her yells helped nurse the wound until paramedics arrived. Johnson, whose cut required seven stitches, remained at the hospital Friday afternoon.
"The fact that she is alive is the greatest gift," said Hopkins, of Richmond. "As far as I'm concerned, the most important thing that came out of the house was her."
Many others shared the same sentiment: Their houses were damaged, some even destroyed, but at least no lives were lost.
Several communities in the Kansas City area were hit hard when at least two of the four tornadoes left hundreds of homes and businesses damaged, destroying some.
The National Weather Service said a EF3 tornado struck around 2 a.m. Friday, cutting a 75-foot-wide swath along a roughly two-mile stretch of north Kansas City near Liberty.
A second tornado Friday that hit a little farther south in Gladstone was an EF2 and touched down around the same time.
Two weaker, EF0 tornadoes hit Thursday night one near Plattsburg and the other near Belton but no homes were reported damaged, said Julie Adolphson, meteorologist in charge for the National Weather Service office in Pleasant Hill.
Officials determined that damage in Independence was not caused by a tornado. Winds in the Kansas City area reached 80 mph during the storms, weather officials said.
No serious injuries were reported. About 13,200 metro area customers had no power as of Friday afternoon, Kansas City Power & Light reported. At the peak of the storm, about 40,000 lost power.
Kansas City officials said more than 100 homes were damaged in the northeast part of the city. In Gladstone, officials said as many as 200 homes were damaged and 20 were destroyed.
Besides those communities and Independence, the National Weather Service also reported damage to homes in Riverside.
Gladstone resident Judy Gordy said it sounded like a train was coming through her neighborhood when the tornado struck.
"I got up to check," she said. "I went by the front door and all this debris was flying down the street and around our yard."
She quickly alerted her husband and two children so they could head to the basement. But before they made it, the storm was over.
Dave Bruns, who lives on the same street as Gordy, couldn't believe how the storm hopped around their neighborhood leaving some houses like his with their roofs damaged and others untouched.
A blue tarp covered part of his roof. A downed tree and other debris lay in piles on his lawn. A piece of wood from a neighbor's fence that had smashed into his house was still sticking through a basement window.
Bruns and others on his street were busy cleaning up yard debris Friday afternoon.
"Everybody's helping everybody," said Bruns, 41, as he raked debris on the side of his house. "I say let's get it cleaned up ... and let's get back on our feet."
Gladstone Mayor Mark Revenaugh and other officials, including Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., said they will be seeking state and federal assistance. Revenaugh said his community of 27,500 residents survived a similar tornado in May 2003 and will recover again.
Gladstone City Hall was without power Friday, but the staff was still working to help residents who dropped in. Phone calls to City Hall were rerouted to other city offices.
Officials said warning sirens were not set off in Gladstone during the tornado because dispatchers did not receive any Weather Service reports of tornado sightings. They said they will be reviewing the process.
