A Friday night storm that battered Perry caused only minor damage in Audrain County.

Wind and rain toppled a large tree in the 200 block of West Central in Mexico around 11 p.m. It took down power lines and caused an outage that blacked out the central portion of the city.

A stoplight at the corner of Clark and Boulevard was knocked out of service. A crew from the Missouri Department of Transportation set up temporary signs to control traffic until power was restored.

Trees and branches were downed around the county and there were reports of hail near the airport in Mexico. Otherwise Nicholas Tietsort, Audrain County’s Emergency Management director reports the county suffered little damage, other than those typically caused by summer storms.

“It didn’t miss us by much,” said Audrain County sheriff Matt Oller. “But the stuff I saw in Perry was devastating.”

The storm system zeroed in on Perry. Devastating gusts estimated at up to 90 miles per hour shattered windows, tore facades off of buildings, flipped campers at Jellystone Park and sank boats at Blackjack Marina.

Onlookers descended on the community Saturday, hampering initial clean up efforts. Worried about the potential for break ins, the city ordered a 10 p.m. curfew and Ralls County sheriff Brad Stinson called the Audrain County Sheriff’s Office for assistance.

On Saturday evening the Oller sent two deputies to Perry to help officers patrol the city, which was still without power.

“By Saturday night his guys had been on duty for 24 hours,” Oller pointed out.

The deputies from Audrain County reported that everything was quiet overnight into Sunday. Oller believes vigilance by Perry residents was a big reason there was no serious trouble in the storm’s aftermath.

Mike and Traci Wilson, owners of Okie Doke BBQ in Martinsburg, took their food trailer to Perry on Sunday. They served 200 free lunches and another 200 free dinners and returned again on Monday to offer lunch.

“These people have been through so much but still found it necessary to donate so we could feed more,” the Wilson’s noted in a Facebook post.

The region has been lashed by powerful storms throughout the summer. Tietsort’s office is assessing the cost of damage from storms between June 19 and July 2 should the state seek federal emergency funds.

The threshold for an emergency declaration to recover the cost of debris removal, road repair and other work is close to $90,000 for county expenses. Tietsort estimates Audrain County is over that threshold.

The county will meet with representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency this week.

“We don’t know we’ll get anything,” said commissioner Alan Winders, noting that the process must first move to the state level. “But we do know we’ll get nothing if we don’t have documentation.”