Benton Courier - Tornado tears across county; flooding now a foremost concern

Saline County was struck by an apparent tornado and a series of seemingly relentless spring storms that bullied their way through the county’s midsection overnight Thursday.

Storms began about 9 Thursday night and continued to wreak havoc throughout the night, leaving a trail of destruction and new concerns about widespread flooding.
A mobile home park became an inferno, businesses were rendered helpless and a subdivision was ravaged during the frightful events overnight.
Amanda Brown, meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in North Little Rock, said a tornado has not been officially confirmed yet.
“We aren’t saying that there wasn’t a tornado, but we can’t say there was any until we get out to survey everything,” Brown said. “We hope to get out today and hopefully confirm things later today. We ... don’t know the extent of damage in Saline County at this point. Flooding is our main concern now in several counties, including Saline.”
Rainfall for Saline County was upwards of 2 1/2 inches, Brown said, and some areas reported as much as 4 inches and more. “But again, we don’t have any reports for specific areas for Saline at this time. We should know more about all these reports later today once we are able to get out to those areas to survey.”
Everett Buick Pontiac GMC appeared to be one of the businesses most damaged by the apparent tornado. The auto dealership is near the Target shopping center at Alcoa Road and Interstate 30 and took a direct hit, officials said.
Benton Mayor Rick Holland estimated damage in the city at $15 million, while expressing relief that no known serious injuries occurred.
Two Benton firefighters, Russ Evans and Bryson Tittle, suffered minor injuries while responding in the rescue truck to a stranded motorist on McGee Road, Fire Marshal Bruce Armstrong said.
“They were responding to mutual aid for Salem Fire Department,” Armstrong said. “When they topped a hill on McGee, the roadway had washed out. There was about a 10-foot wide gully about 20 feet deep.
“Fortunately, they weren’t seriously injured. I think Bryson got checked out at the hospital. I’m meeting some people with a crane to help lift the rescue truck out of the gully,” he said.
Armstrong said the truck “wedged itself in the gully. Initially, the front tires dropped off into it and the vehicle started to turn toward the driver’s side. They tried to get out the driver’s side, but it started to shift, so they hurried out the passenger door and had to jump to the other side to safety.
“Basically, they had to help each other to survive,” Armstrong said.
The first call into the police department occurred at 9:21 p.m. when it was reported that a tornado had been spotted in the area of Target shopping center near the Interstate 30 Alcoa Road exit, Capt. Roger Gaither, interim police chief, reported.
“Officers responded to the area to find minor damage starting in Heritage Farms and continuing to Everett motors. The path continued to the Hurricane Creek mobile Home Park, Hurricane Lake Estates and then to Hurricane Meadows.
A command center was set up at the entrance to the mobile home park, Gaither said.
He reported that 25 houses were damaged in the Heritage Farms subdivision. “Trees blocked the entrance into the trailer park and into Hurricane Lake Estates,” Holland said.
Fire destroyed two mobile homes, 70 or more had some type of damage and 12 were destroyed, Gaither said.
Flooding occurred throughout the city. Holland said many families were evacuated from their homes in hidden Valley, where flooding has occurred many times.
Road closures occurred on Arkansas 183 by the Department of Human Services facility and vehicles were submerged on Chris Drove and Alcoa Road. No injuries were reported, Holland said.
“One man was evacuated out of a house on Gray Street, which is off Arkansas 35 off 183, where it backs up to old Depot Creek. Quail Valley was flooded and we had to bring in boats to evacuate people about 2 a.m. today. Homes were also flooded at the lower end of Worth Avenue and people were evacuated about 2 a.m..” All people have been accounted for, Assistant Fire Chief Mark Mills said. Two people initially were missing from the Hurricane Lake Mobile Home Park area, but they have been located, Mills said.
Damage also occurred in Hurricane Meadows, Heritage Farms, Hurricane Lake Estates, Hurricane Lake Mobile Home Park,
Holland said 36 houses were heavily damaged in Hurricane Meadows near Springhill Elementary School, which is in the Bryant School District.
Additional flooding occurred on Edison Avenue and on Market Street, Alcoa at Chris Drive, Arkansas 5 South and Denise Drive, which is “really flooded,” Holland said.
“I’m sure there are other places, but those are the ones we know about. Everywhere we drove there’s standing water. Even I-30 has about two feet of water by Everett. We called the state Highway Department to come out and do some barricading on it.”
Holland said Terry McKinney, manager of Benton Utilities, has “all of our electrial lines up and ready to go” in the Hurricane Lake area. “The only thing holding up this area is Entergy energizing the feeder lines. All of our lines are all in place. We’re ready to go. We do have some services torn off houses around town, but individual residents will have to contact electricians to make these repairs.”
“Our guys have gotten all our lines up and ready to go,” he added.
“We weren’t sure whether our switching station had been damaged at Hurricane Lake, but fortunately this didn’t happen,” Holland said. “Since the power is off in that area, the pump stations are not working so as a result we are having to send our vaccum trucks out to the pump stations to keep the waste stations pumped out to push the wastewater through the sewage plant.”
Holland commended city personnel for their dedication throughout the night.
“All of the city personnel came out last night — even dispatchers came in. We had people from the street department, electric water and sewer employees all out here as well as police and fire and emergency personnel. It was a concerted effort by city staff. They all came out, worked all through the night to get services back and are right back on the job this morning. They’ve done a great job.”
Gary Hunnicutt, acting as a spokesman for the county in assesing damage, said it’s “hard right now to determine the extent of damage. Everyone is checking on each other, trying to figure out who needs help. We don’t really know how much damage there is.
The Crossroads area is heavily flooded and “people should stay out of there,” Hunnicutt said.
Marty Polk, the county’s assistant road superintendent, said several areas are washed out because water has eroded under the asphalt and cut the asphalt,
“Our roads are in terrible shape,” Polk said.
“Cynamide Road is completely flooded and should be avoided altogether,” he said. “Narrows Road is shut down. Culverts are out in the East End area. Tree are downed across the roads. We’re out assessing damage now because we couldn’t see last night.
“Basically,” Polk said, “if you don’t have to go in an area, don’t try it.
“If you don’t live there, stay out of the damaged areas,” Hunnicutt said.
Bryant Mayor Larry Mitchell said he “went out this morning with Police Chief Tony Coffman to view damage in the city. Springhill Road looked really bad. In fact, we are going to have to close it off for a while. Across from Springhill Elementary, in that wooded area, it looks like a war zone. At this time, I haven’t received any reports of injuries from either Chief Coffman or [Bryant Fire] Chief Randy Cox ... . We’re still assessing the damage, so there are no cost estimates.
“I think there are probably a lot of blessed people out there that things weren’t any worse. There were a lot of homes with huge trees on them, but I don’t believe there were a lot of people injured from the storms. I know there was a lot of flooding in a lot of the areas, and we are concentrating on helping those people in flooded areas. Chief Cox said they have been going door-to-door.”
Bryant Fire Battalion Chief Brian Watson said the department responded to “at least three fire reports. One was an actual fire at a home in Carrywood and two where there were fire alarms. We also cut down trees at Carrywood. There is no extent of damage to report on home fires at this time. We spent a good portion of our time since the storms first hit dealing with flooding issues including Shobe Road, Arkansas 5, Forest Drive, Meadowlake and Monticello streets.”
“We used a (flat-bottom) boat to get residents out of Meadowlake subdivision. We went door-to-door to locate residents in Meadowlake to check if they were OK and get residents out. The only tornado damage in the actual city limits was at the Everett Pontiac car dealership. Everything else was on the edge of the city limits. We also helped in assisting Benton Fire Department , which worked the Hurricane Creek trailer park. There are several closed roads including Boone Road from the new park complex down past Lee Circle. It is impassible and had to pull out a vehicle drown on that road around 7 a.m.”
First Electric Cooperative reported that power outages occurred in several areas. First Electric has approximately 5,500 houses and businesses without power at this time, a spokesman said, primarily in the Collegeville and Congo Road areas.
First Electric Cooperative officials asked people to treat all downed power lines and poles as if they are energized and to notify the utility company and local law enforcement officials as soon as possible.
First Electric members can report power outages by calling toll-free 1-888-827-3322. First Electric Cooperative serves more than 83,000 members throughout parts of 17 counties in Central and Southeast Arkansas.

Courier staff writers Jillian Duke, Melissa Walls and Bruce Guthrie contributed to this report.

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