Everyone who owns a dock here knows storms damage docks. What is harder to find is what specifically happens, and how. The National Weather Service keeps a record of every severe weather event it surveys, including what was damaged, and the lake counties have a clear pattern in that record.
These five events carry $710,000 in recorded property damage between them. Each is a real record you can look up by its event number.
8 May 2023 · Hail · Camden County
Golf ball sized hail was reported near the Mimosa Beach Resort. Several docks, boats and other buildings received roof and window damage.
6 March 2017 · EF-0 tornado · Morgan County
An EF-0 tornado damaged some outbuildings and docks south of Rocky Mount in Morgan County. Maximum wind speed was estimated 75 to 85 mph.
19 May 2017 · Thunderstorm wind · Camden County
A boat dock was damaged at the Moorings Yacht Club on Lake of the Ozarks. Electrical connections from the dock were pulled out of the ground.
20 July 2018 · Thunderstorm wind · Camden County
Two docks were flipped over and a home had significant roof damage. A detached carport was flipped over and destroyed. The roof of a covered deck was blown off.
18 May 2019 · Thunderstorm wind · Camden County
A boat dock was flipped over on the main channel of Lake of the Ozarks due to high winds.
The pattern worth noticing
Tornadoes get the attention, but only one of these five was a tornado, and it was an EF-0, the weakest rating. The rest were plain severe thunderstorms with straight-line wind. If you are deciding what to reinforce, reinforce for the storm that arrives several times a summer, not the one that arrives once a decade.
Docks flip. That reads as an exaggeration until you see it twice in the same record: two docks flipped in July 2018, another flipped on the main channel in May 2019. A covered dock is a broad flat surface with air moving under it, which is not far off a wing. Whether wind lifts it or just rocks it comes down to cable condition, anchor points, and how the roof is tied to the frame.
The damage you cannot see is electrical. At the Moorings Yacht Club in May 2017 the electrical connections were pulled out of the ground as the structure moved. That dock may well have looked fine from shore. Wiring pulled loose at the shoreline transition is a shock hazard around water, and it is the first thing to have checked after any storm that shifted the structure, well before cosmetic repairs.
What to do after a storm moves your dock
Photograph everything before moving anything, and note the date. If the National Weather Service surveyed a severe event on that date in your county, that record exists publicly and supports your account of when the damage happened. Isolate the power until the wiring has been inspected. Then look at the anchor and cable hardware rather than the visible surface damage, because that is what decides whether the next ordinary thunderstorm does it again.
Sources
Every event above is drawn from the NOAA Storm Events Database maintained by the National Weather Service, filtered to Camden, Miller and Morgan counties. Event numbers link to the original records. Narrative text is quoted or lightly condensed from the NWS survey. We were not present at any of these events and make no claim about repairs performed on the structures described.