A 21-year-old emu named Adam was killed at a Missouri zoo after sustaining head trauma from softball-sized hail that battered the city of Springfield during a historic storm.
Adam, a female emu at the Dickerson Park Zoo, suffered fatal injuries during the severe weather Tuesday. Zoo officials say that can be blamed on the emu's instinct to lie down to take cover, according to The Associated Press.
Oscar, a 17-year-old rhea bird, was injured in the storm, but is on the mend and receiving pain medication. Rhea birds are distant cousins of emus.
All of the zoo’s other animals are safe and the facility reopened Thursday after workers cleaned up “significant damage” from the hail.
“Please note: some small birds will be off exhibit until skylights are repaired,” the zoo said in a post on Facebook. “There is still much to be done, but please come visit.”
Emergency management officials said the hailstorm was the worst in Springfield’s history. Winds gusted up to 70 miles per hour, according to the local National Weather Service office.
“You could just tell from what we were seeing on radar that the hail was growing in size,” Nicolette Zangara, a spokesperson for the Springfield-Greene County Office of Emergency Management, also told The Associated Press.
“And then we started getting pictures from some of our neighboring counties, some of the hail that they were getting. And from that moment we knew it was going to be a bad storm.”
The zoo wasn’t the only area of Springfield rocked by the storms. Dozens of flights were reportedly delayed or canceled at the Springfield-Branson National Airport, the flight tracker FlightAware shows.
The unrelenting hail targeted the city library, closed a Walmart, smashed through windshields and caused power outages for 10,000 customers.
Just over 240 customers were left without power in the state Thursday, according to the tracker PowerOutage.US. There were also reports of hail damage to gas meters, city officials said in a Facebook post.
Police in Springfield warned residents to be wary of door-knockers claiming to offer home inspection or repair services.
“Before you pay anyone for roof repair, vehicle repair, or tree removal, research the business,” the department urged.
For now, the storm has passed. Dry and cold weather is forecast through the weekend.
Missouri is one of several central states in a region nicknamed “Tornado Alley” for the frequency of the storms. The other states include Texas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Ohio.
Tornado activity is expected to pick up through early summer.
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