The power of Mother Nature is something area residents always want to respect.

Three people died 25 years ago when a massive storm system swooped across Northeast Kansas and Northwest Missouri on June 7, 1984, damaging many areas that hadn’t seen such devastation in a lifetime.

In Hiawatha, Kan., people told Waynetta Sickles, 73, to take cover at a local store. The St. Joseph News-Press reported that she didn’t survive a heart attack that may have been brought on by fear of the tornado.

Four individuals were injured, a number of tractor-trailer rigs were overturned and 33 homes were damaged as the tornado passed through Brown County, according to newspaper accounts.

At Eagleville, Mo., in Harrison County, a tornado swept away the trailer home of Charles and Edna Jessee.

Two days later, reports in the News-Press said Charles Lloyd Jessee, 72, died when the tornado hit the trailer.

“My father moved to be near me and a granddaughter,” said Sandra Heyle, Mr. Jessee’s daughter.

He settled into retirement fishing and gardening, Mrs. Heyle said. Her mother saw the tornado and described it as a wall of water. It broke her right arm, a leg and almost tore off her right ear, Mrs. Heyle recalls. But the mother survived and lived to be 91 before passing away in 2006, Mrs. Heyle said.

St. Joseph was in the storm’s path, but it wasn’t a tornado that enveloped the town. Flash flooding hit every low-lying place in town, the News-Press reported. St. Joseph received between 7 and 10 inches of rain, along with golf ball-sized hail.

The rising waters swept Albert Loubey Sr., 47, off his feet, and he drowned south of Pickett Road.

There were reports of basement flooding causing gas explosions and fires, and people had to be rescued from low-lying areas all around the city. Four schools became emergency shelters, and city officials asked that the city be declared a disaster area.

At Rosecrans Memorial Airport, it flooded everything inside the levee from one end to the other, said Harvey Dupree.

“It didn’t do any good, but we pumped water over the levee for two weeks,” Mr. Dupree said. “It made people feel good.”

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