• pub­lished: 28 Apr 2014
• views: 266

At least 17 killed as tor­na­does rip through Arkansas Three years after a tor­na­do dev­as­tat­ed the Lit­tle Rock sub­urb of Vilo­nia, its res­i­dents found them­selves hud­dling in the dark early Mon­day won­der­ing how they would re­build again after the most pow­er­ful tor­na­do yet this year carved a path through their city and oth­ers near­by, killing at least 16 peo­ple. The tor­na­do touched down Sun­day about 10 miles west of Lit­tle Rock at around 7 p.m., then carved an 80-mile path of de­struc­tion as it passed through or near sev­er­al sub­urbs north of the state cap­i­tal, in­clud­ing Vilo­nia. It grew to be a half-mile wide and re­mained on the ground for much of that route, au­thor­i­ties said. Among the ruins was a new $14 mil­lion in­ter­me­di­ate school that was set to open this fall. "There's just re­al­ly noth­ing there any­more. We're prob­a­bly going to have to start all over again," Vilo­nia Schools Su­per­in­ten­dent Frank Mitchell said after sur­vey­ing what was left of the build­ing. The tor­na­do was the largest of sev­er­al pro­duced by a pow­er­ful storm sys­tem that rum­bled through the cen­tral and south­ern U.S. An­oth­er twister killed a per­son in Qua­paw, Okla., be­fore cross­ing into Kansas to the north and de­stroy­ing 60 to 70 homes and in­jur­ing 25 peo­ple in the city of Bax­ter Springs, ac­cord­ing to au­thor­i­ties in Kansas. A death was re­port­ed in Bax­ter Springs, but it wasn't yet known if it was caused by the tor­na­do, mak­ing the Ok­la­homa death the only con­firmed death from Sun­day's storms out­side of Arkansas. The over­all death toll stood at 17 early Mon­day. The tor­na­do that hit Arkansas didn't form until night was set­ting in, so the full ex­tent of the dam­age wouldn't be known until after sun­rise on Mon­day. In north­west Louisiana, a teenag­er suf­fered minor in­juries when a tor­na­do touched down there early Mon­day. Bill Davis, a spokesman for the Bossier Parish Sher­iff's Of­fice, said the tor­na­do hit around 3:15 a.m. Mon­day about six miles west of Plain Deal­ing in most­ly a rural area. The teen suf­fered cuts and bruis­es and his home was heav­i­ly dam­aged. The Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice's Storm Pre­dic­tion Cen­ter said more storms were ex­pect­ed Mon­day in the South and Mis­sis­sip­pi Val­ley. The Arkansas twister shred­ded cars, trucks and 18-wheel­ers stuck along In­ter­state 40 north of Lit­tle Rock. After the storm passed, trac­tor-trail­er rigs tried to nav­i­gate through the dam­age to con­tin­ue their jour­neys, while gawk­ers held smart­phones to their win­dows to offer a grim glimpse of the de­struc­tion. State troop­ers went ve­hi­cle-to-ve­hi­cle to check on mo­torists and said with gen­uine sur­prise that no one was killed. "About 30 ve­hi­cles — large trucks, sedans, pick­up trucks — were going through there when the fun­nel cloud passed over," said Bill Sadler, a spokesman for the Arkansas State Po­lice. Karla Ault, a Vilo­nia High School vol­ley­ball coach, said she shel­tered in the school gym­na­si­um as the storm ap­proached. After it passed, her hus­band told her their home was gone — re­duced to the slab on which it had sat. "I'm just kind of numb. It's just shock that you lost ev­ery­thing. You don't un­der­stand ev­ery­thing you have until you re­al­ize that all I've got now is just what I have on," Ault said. The coun­try had en­joyed a rel­a­tive lull in vi­o­lent weath­er and didn't record the first tor­na­do death until Sun­day, when a North Car­oli­na in­fant who was in­jured by a twister Fri­day died at a hos­pi­tal. But the sys­tem that moved through the Plains, Mid­west and South on Sun­day pro­duced tor­na­does that struck sev­er­al states, in­clud­ing also Mis­souri, Ne­bras­ka and Iowa. The weath­er ser­vice's North Lit­tle Rock of­fice said it was vir­tu­al­ly cer­tain that the Mayflow­er and Vilo­nia storm would be rated as the na­tion's strongest twister to date this year. "It has the po­ten­tial to be EF3 or greater," said me­te­o­rol­o­gist Jeff Hood. EF3 storms have winds greater than 136 mph. "Based on some of the footage we've seen from Mayflow­er and where it crossed In­ter­state 40, things were wrecked in a very sig­nif­i­cant way." From com­mu­ni­ties west of Lit­tle Rock to oth­ers well north of the cap­i­tal, emer­gen­cy work­ers and vol­un­teers were going door-to-door check­ing for vic­tims. "It turned pitch black," said Mark Aus­brooks, who was at his par­ents' home in Mayflow­er when the storm ar­rived. "I ran and got pil­lows to put over our heads and ... all hell broke loose." "My par­ents' home, it's gone com­plete­ly," he said. Becky Nay­lor, of Mayflow­er, said she and her fam­i­ly went to their storm cel­lar after hear­ing that tor­na­do de­bris was falling in near­by Mor­gan. Nay­lor, 57, said there were be­tween 20 and 22 peo­ple in the cel­lar and they were "packed like sar­dines." "Ev­ery­one is wel­come to come into it," she said. "In fact, peo­ple were pulling off the high­ways and were just run­ning in." She said the men held the cel­lar doors shut while the tor­na­do's winds tried to rip them open.