Back on our feet

Mountain View residents getting used to weathering storms

By Elizabeth Sharp

LITTLE ROCK — Like the rest of the people in Mountain View, Melody Miller has seen Mother Nature do a lot to her town in the past month and a half.

On Feb. 5, a category 4 tornado originating near Atkins blazed a 123-mile path across northern Arkansas, claiming one life and causing damages to Stone County Medical Center, not to mention six days of power outages. On March 7, winter storms dumped 18 inches of snow in north central Arkansas. And last week, between eight and 12 inches of rain caused floods that wiped out numerous homes and businesses.

"My family goes back into Stone County to the early 1800s, and so I still have a lot of family that lives here," Miller said. "Just about everyone that I know has been affected either by one [of the natural disasters] or another."

But how unusual is a trio of natural disasters in one place in such a short span of time? Steve Bays, hydrologist at the National Weather Service bureau in North Little Rock, said the recent spat of bad weather concentrated in Mountain View, while strange, isn't completely unheard of in north central Arkansas.

"Arkansas has a history of tornadoes and floods, so anybody is vulnerable to severe weather and natural phenomena," he said.

Regardless of the state's history, Jim Cash, mayor of Mountain View, said that he's never seen anything like what's happened in his town since Feb. 5.

"With the snow storm and the heavy rain, it's kind of slowed down our cleanup on the debris from the tornado," Cash said. "But the main thing, of course, [is that]we're a tourist town and county, and we'll be ready to go and ready to welcome the tourists that come and see us for the Folk Festival. We're still the Folk Music Capital of the World."

Regarding future weather in Mountain View, Bays said that they don't have a longrange outlook of what may be next for that part of the state.

"We look forward about a week at a time, and there's nothing to indicate anything else is going to happen - except with the history of this state, you can't rule it out that it won't," he said.

Grady Spann, general manager of the Ozark Folk Center State Park, said he's optimistic about what's happened recently and what's going to happen in the near future for the people of Mountain View.

"The greatest gift of all in this is the fact that the community came together and was able to share with each other, cry with each other, celebratewith each other, and say, 'You know, we're going to get back on our feet and keep going,'" Spann said. "Through all the toughness and sorrow came a lot of happiness and relationships."

As for Miller, she's prepared for whatever happens next.

"If I'm going to be living through a disaster, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in the world," she said. "It's where family is. Even if they're not blood family, they're family. If there's a fourth disaster, this is where I'll be. I'm not leaving."

Three Rivers, Pages 53, 54 on 03/27/2008