Dawn shows Mena extent of storm's hit

MENA — When the sun rose over this remote mountain town Friday, the storm's destruction became painfully clear.

Three people were dead; a couple dozen others were injured. About 600 homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed.

On the downtown square,hardly a building was left untouched. The courthouse was damaged, and a tree had fallen on the justice center next door, which houses the Polk County sheriff's office, police department and jail.

Wind blew out windows, punctured roofs and uprooted decades-old hardwoods.

"It looks a lot different in daylight," Toby Shores, a 37-yearold Mena carpenter, said while walking through the storm-ravaged neighborhood where the three were killed.

"We knew it was bad. We didn't know it was this bad."

A tornado, possibly an EF3 with up to 165 mph winds, ripped a 10-mile path throughthe western Arkansas county Thursday night and hit the heart of town.

Deadly storms continued Friday in neighboring Tennessee and Kentucky, destroying homes and businesses and killing at least two people, The Associated Press reported. At least 41 people were injured.

In Arkansas, early reports from the National Weather Service confirmed at least five tornadoes touching down Thursday night, one of which tracked along the Arkansas-Louisiana line, said Christian Stapleton, a Shreveport forecaster. In all, eleven counties reported some damage.

More storms are expected in southwest Arkansas on Easter Sunday, which Stapleton described as fairly common in recent years.

"Sunrise services should be OK," he said. "Easter-egg hunting after church, probably not."

By Friday, Gov. Mike Beebe had declared Polk, Sevier and Howard counties disaster areas and had decided to pursue federal aid. Beebe's spokesman, Matt DeCample, said the governor was surprised by the scope of the damage.

Because the tornado hit after dark, Beebe had been given preliminary information that indicated about 100 homes in Mena had been damaged.

"When we came over Mena, it was immediately clear it was much worse," DeCample said. "What really jumped out at you was how wide the storm path was."

'DEAD SILENT'

This Polk County city of about 5,700 residents in the Ouachita Mountains bore the brunt of the storms.

Many people who had lived in Mena during previous storms declared Thursday's tornado the worst they'd ever seen. Beebe sent at least 50 National Guardsmen to the city.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," said Anita Nault, who spent nine hours cutting through debris overnight to get back to her home after seeking shelter at a friend's house.

A tree had fallen on her home, but she believed it could be fixed. Nault counted herself among the lucky ones.

The Dallas Masonic Lodge collapsed with about 20 people inside. Neighbors and firefighters rushed to pull the injured from the debris, but one woman couldn't be saved.

Anna Cress, 84, was crushed when the building crumbled.

Down the street, Albert Shaw, 61, died when his family's two-story home collapsed, crushing him in his recliner. His relatives escaped.

Kathy Phillips, who hustled past Shaw's house in her terry-cloth bathrobe Friday morning, was horrified to learn that he didn't make it. He was a grandfather who worked at Wal-Mart.

"Oh, no," she said, putting her gloved hands to her mouth. She paused somberly and looked at the debris that sat where Shaw's home once stood.

"God is good," Phillips said. Then she hurried to take care of her grandchildren, who escaped unscathed from their storm-leveled home a block away.

A few blocks away, Judy Lobner, 67, was found dead under the debris after part of her daughter's house caved in. Her daughter was rushed to the hospital but is expected to live.

Area schools canceled classes. The Mena School District began making plans to send middle-school students elsewhere because the campus sustained serious damage.

Nearby Rich Mountain Community College also took a beating. It was unclear Friday when it would reopen.

Mena High School's prom, scheduled for Friday night, was postponed.

Levi Romine, 18, was trying on his tuxedo just minutes before he heard a freight-train sound. He changed and then hunkered down on top of his younger sister in the bathtub until the storm passed.

"Everything became dead silent," he said.

'PRETTY FORTUNATE'

A separate tornado started in the northwest corner of Sevier County and headed northeast to the townof Dierks in Howard County, where it "tore up their water plant," Sevier County Judge Dick Tallman said.

"Trees are snapped off and blown up; almost all manufactured homes that were in that path were destroyed," Tallman said. "I know of one brick home that is destroyed. And a lot of those trees fell on homes, too."

Firefighters from nine volunteer departments in the county responded to a call for assistance Thursday night, most with chain saws.

The firefighters and county road crews worked until about 1 a.m. Friday to clear trees and limbs from roads.

"At that point, we had a hole at least cut in every road so that you could get through," Tallman said.

The judge said officials were still assessing the damage.

In neighboring Howard County, which includes 1,230 people in Dierks, County Judge Kevin Smith's biggest concern was the water treatment plant.

"It's pretty much out of commission," Smith said, adding that bottled water was on the way and that the National Guard planned to take tanks for drinking water.

"There's possibilities of hooking onto the surrounding rural water systems to give them some water. It won't be enough, but it would be some."

A few homes and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers office on Lake Road near Dierks Lake also suffered damage. One person in neighboring Center Point was injured. The person's condition was unavailable.

"We were pretty fortunate," Smith said.

Nearly 200 miles to the southeast in Ashley County, almost three dozen homes were damaged south of Crossett. Two were destroyed, said Jimmie Skender, the county's emergency management coordinator.

The National Weather Service said an EF2 tornado, with winds reaching 130 miles per hour, touched down about eight miles south-southwest of Crossett and ended 12 miles southeast of Crossett.

"It's unbelievable; it's just unbelievable that nobody's been injured," Skender said.

HEADWAY AND HEARTACHE

Rescuers in Mena on Friday morning feared that they'd find people trapped in the debris of their homes, but door-to-door search efforts turned up no one, said Mena fire Capt. Duane Harvey.

But the dawn revealed other problems.

Three of the city's biggest employers suffered severe damage, said Charles Powell, chief financial officer of the Mena Regional Health System hospital.

The hospital faces Rich Mountain Community College and U.S. Electrical Motors, a division of St. Louis-based Emerson Electric Co.

"For us it was very minor," Powell said. "Across the street, it's a completely different story. They've not been leveled, but they took a pretty good hit."

Combined, he said, the college and plant employ at least 600 people. A couple of smaller employers in the city's industrial park east of the hospital were also hit.

Polk County Sheriff Mike Oglesby said the community desperately needs those businesses to reopen so people can return to their jobs.

"We don't know how long they're going to be down," Oglesby said.

The situation in the city remained volatile Friday morning as workers tried to deal with gas leaks and downed wires. National Guardsmen stood watch for looters. Shell-shocked residents complained they weren't allowed into their neighborhoods.

By afternoon, some semblance of recovery was under way. A young boy hauled a chain saw to his neighbors. Residents were allowed back into their neighborhoods. Many went home to pack up belongings.

A dusk-to-dawn curfew is in place, said Bill Sadler, an Arkansas State Police spokesman. Troopers will patrol the downtown area to enforce the order.

The 18 or so inmates in the county jail were transferred elsewhere because the facility remained without power.

Many roads had been cleared, and state prisoners worked to clean up downtown.

"We made a lot of headway today. The next day, maybe we'll make a little more," Oglesby said.

'A LONG WAY'

About 90 miles northeast of Mena, an elderly farmer who lives near Belleville went to check on his cows Friday morning and found a piece of paper that flew in the storm from Mena City Hall or the Polk County Courthouse.

It landed, mostly undamaged, on the side of his barn.

Robert Dickson brought the document - a layout of a Mena ball field - to Reagan's Station in Belleville.

"It's kind of the talk of the town," said Scott Reagan, owner of the gas station. "That's a long way for a piece of paper to fly." Information for this article was contributed by Mike Linn of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.