Photo by Eric Keith / St. Joseph News-Press

City crews were out in force along Lake Avenue on Friday morning cleaning up debris from Thursday night’s storm.

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The National Weather Service determined Friday that a small tornado hit a South Side neighborhood Thursday with winds between 65 and 75 mph.

There was never any doubt in the mind of Fermin Pesina Thursday night. At home with his wife, Maria, and eight of their nine children, Mr. Pesina watched a rerun of “Desperate Housewives” that featured a tornado wrecking homes.

And then it was raining, the house started shaking, everything went black and the house fell down, Mr. Pesina said.

I told the kids to quit screaming and say their names, he said.

Photo by Eric Keith / St. Joseph News-Press

Andy Bailey from the National Weather Service looks through the damaged home at Virginia and Grant streets Friday morning, looking for evidence of tornadic activity. After visiting several damaged areas in St. Joseph, Mr. Bailey concluded that a small tornado hit the South Side Thursday night.

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He found his wife and each child, including a boy trapped by a refrigerator that traveled from the kitchen to the living room. One by one he carried the kids through the house and to a waiting neighbor. About 10 minutes later he heard the storm sirens and police cars start arriving.

The sight of their house sitting askew half scared and half surprised San Juanita Pesina, 14 and the oldest child, when she arrived home from church.

The Midland Empire Chapter of the American Red Cross assisted the Pesina family. The family escaped with the clothes on their backs. Some of the kids didn’t even have shoes on. Red Cross volunteers secured motel rooms, clothes and food.

Early Friday people got to see what the junior tornado had done.

Karla Long, the local Red Cross emergency services director, said Lake Avenue, where several business sustained significant damage, looked like a new South Side Parade.

“Everybody was out looking and they just didn’t need to be down there,” she said.

Mr. Pesina told the kids they could have a school holiday Friday. The two oldest, who attend Spring Garden Middle School, didn’t like the idea.

“Who wants to stay home and be bored,” San Juanita Pesina said. “I think school is fun.”

She was worried about one thing: She didn’t have her homework.

To her surprise, the teacher said Friday that the girl had a real excuse, which made her smile. It also didn’t hurt that all her school friends wanted to hear what happened.

Virginia and Grant streets remained closed Friday pending the destruction of the Pesina home at 504 Virginia St. Bougher Bobcat brought an excavator Friday and in two hours finished what the small tornado started. The house was knocked down along with all the Pesina family’s possessions, including the washer with a load of clean children’s clothes.

It took several hours Friday and a last-minute witness before the National Weather Service issued its decision. Reviewing the radar data, the determination could have gone either way and initially the on-site investigation suggested that straight-line winds did the damage, said Andy Bailey, a meteorologist from the Pleasant Hill forecast office.

Everything suggested a low-end wind scale and, frankly, the structures that were damaged weren’t all that strong, Mr. Bailey said. But a witness accurately described what he saw as a tornado. That evidence couldn’t be discounted, Mr. Bailey said.

The winds cut power to about 5,900 homes and businesses in and around St. Joseph.

Workers fully restored power by midnight except for a few individual homes in rural areas, said Al Butkus, an Aquila spokesman.

Meanwhile the Pesina family is listening to Miguel Pesina, 2, imitate a police car siren as he runs between the two motel bedrooms where they are staying. Mrs. Pesina, who works at Triumph Foods, reads the newspaper advertisements and calls seeking an affordable home to rent. Mr. Pesina is trying to find a job.

Mother Nature will continue to buffet Northwest Missouri with more rain and the possibility of some snow showers this weekend, according to St. Joe Now.

Marshall White can be reached at marshall@npgco.com.