PHELPS COUNTY, Mo. — A Monday evening storm knocked out trees and power to residents in Phelps County.

“I didn’t even know anything about [the] weather,” Glenda Richardson said. “It was nice out. I was out 30 minutes before [the storm].”

Richardson lives in Newburg and has lived in her home for nearly 30 years. Monday’s storm came as a surprise.

“I was sitting in my living room and I heard some noise,” Richardson said. “I opened the door and I saw some high wind and rain. So I went out my other door and I knew I had some things outside. I went to move them and next thing I know I heard a loud thump and my tree was gone and the wind was going like round and round.”

Those straight line winds also created power outages.

“Most of the calls that our personnel were getting were downed power line type calls, so much so that they did a second alarm,” City of Rolla Fire and Rescue Fire Chief Jeff Breen said. “We brought in ten off-duty firefighters on top of the, I think we had eight that were already on duty.”

Breen said this storm was unique because of how quickly it came through. Downed power lines were also the cause of a house fire in Phelps County.

“When we get storm calls like that in the city overall, we get a lot of alarm soundings,” Breen said. “We typically triage what, what calls we go to first. So a house fire is definitely high on that list.”

Some utility crews were still out Tuesday afternoon working to replace downed poles. Overall, Breen said power came back on relatively quickly for most residents.