LITTLE ROCK — At least three people died and two dozen were seriously injured in Scotland in Van Buren County as a wave of tornado-laden storms descended Friday night on Arkansas, authorities said.
In Saline County, eight people were injured, including one critically, as storms damaged homes, uprooted trees and downed power lines in several counties.
A child was struck by lightning in White County, but police had no word on the extent of the child’s injuries. Police had no other reports of injuries in that county.
At least 100 members of the Arkansas National Guard were mobilized to assist local authorities in search and rescue and to provide security.
The dead and injured in Scotland, an unincorporated community 12 miles southwest of Clinton, were confirmed by the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management.
“Scotland was pretty much blown off the map,” said Joe Goudsward, a senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in North Little Rock.
About 9 p.m., a dispatcher with the Van Buren County sheriff’s office said in a quivering voice that she was unable to contact sheriff’s officials because the radio system wasn’t working properly due to the weather.
If you have information about tornado damage or injuries, please e-mail us at webreleases@arkansasonline.com.
“It’s really bad, just really bad. We don’t know how many,” she said. “Our rescue units are out. Honestly, we’ve lost our radios, and we’re not able to get out to our officer right now.”
Deputy Kenny Dunham with the Van Buren Countysheriff’s office said damage was severe in Scotland.
“In the west-central part of the county, there was extensive damage on Lo Gap Road, and we do know that there were injuries in that area,” Dunham said about 10:15 p.m.
He said sheriff’s officers had set up a command center at the Old Scotland School and were coordinating rescue efforts from there. Durham confirmed that the storm had temporarily disabled officers’ radios.
“Communications have been up and down all night,” he said. “We do have full service at this time, but the power is out to a big portion of our county.”
He said the community has been hit by storms before.
“Two years ago we had a tornado in January that basically destroyed our whole county,” Dunham said. “This is minor compared to that, but we probably have more injuries from this one.”
The tornado that struck Scotland was one of at least four Friday night, Goudsward said. Other tornadoes, confirmed either by law enforcement officers or trained spotters, were reported to have struck Cleveland in Conway County, in the Culpepper community of Van Buren County and near Interstate 440 just south of the Galloway exit, which Goudsward said was reported by the Arkansas State Police.
High winds and heavy rain caused power failures throughout the state. Just before midnight, Entergy Arkansas reported power failures affecting 10,104 customers. Of those, the most - 2,932 - were in Saline County. The second-largest area out of power was in Independence County, where 1,282 customers had no service. In Pulaski County, the utility reported 1,102 had no electricity.
Eight people in Saline County were sent to the hospital, one in critical condition, according to the Saline County Emergency Operation Center. Saline County Judge Lanny Fite said the center received that report from the East End Fire Department command center.
About 100 people took shelter in the East End Elementary School, which had its air-conditioning system blown off the roof and its playground wiped out.
Among those at the shelter was Maria Atwater, who got her parents, Cindy and Hubert Chaney, out of their nearby storm cellar and took them to the school.
“My parents were in the storm cellar in the front of the house right where the trees are down now,” Atwater said. “It just ripped up the yard.”
Atwater said her house was undamaged, but a shed was overturned and trees were down.
DeeAnna Bernardi is building a house near Ironton and Mail Route roads. The roof of that house was blown off in the storm.
“The house was supposed to be finished in about a month, but I guess not now,” she said.
Her father’s home at 15903 Mail Route Road appeared to have escaped serious damage though trees had fallen on the front porch and dining room area, she said. The trees included a pair that were 100 years old.
Saline County Sheriff Bruce Pennington said the big worry in the area was lack of electrical service. Rescue crews spent the evening going door-to-door checking on residents while sheriff’s patrols were stepped up to deter looting.
Capt. Chris Heathscott, a spokesman for the Arkansas National Guard, said about 10:20 p.m. that troops were already being mobilized to assist local authorities.
“We have 100 troops going out [Friday], 50 to Scotland and 50 to East End. That’s what our taskings are right now, to provide search-and-rescue operations aswell as assisting civil authorities with security in the area,” he said.
“Troops from the 39th (Infantry) Brigade are heading to Scotland, and the 189th Airlift Wing are covering the mission in East End,” he said.
A possible tornado near Little Rock National Airport, Adams Field, forcing the evacuation of the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic control tower and the suspension of all operations at the airport for “15 or 20 minutes” shortly before 9 p.m., said Ron Mathieu, the airport’s executive director.
“We were not officially accepting any arrivals,” he said.
Two incoming Delta Airlines flights were diverted to Memphis, Mathieu said.
At one point, power to the field was lost, leaving runway and taxi lights off until generators started, he said. Full power was restored soon after, he said.
About 200 passengers were kept in hallways and bathrooms in the terminal, Mathieu said.
By 9:30 p.m., the airport was “up, open and operating,” he said. “We just had our first departure.”
Also in Pulaski County, a tree fell on a natural gas meter, and crews were working at 10:50 p.m. to cut the tree away so gas utility workers could seal a leak, said Sherman Smith, the county’s public works director. He said the county’s hazardous-materials truck was stationed at Ironton and Pratt roads in case it was needed.
He also said that while he could not confirm it, he’d heard that a tree in Saline County had been uprooted by the wind and “pulled out the gas line.”
Renee Preslar, a spokesman for the state Emergency Management Department, also said that there was damage between the communities of Cleveland and Center Ridge in Conway County. In Cleveland, she said, there were people possibly trapped under a damaged building and that in Center Ridge, rescue workers were searching for a possible missing person.
The conditions that created the volatile storms were fed by southerly winds from an area of high pressure in the Gulf Coast that carried moisture and unstable air into the state, Goudsward said. The ingredients also included wind shear - winds that suddenly change speeds and direction with height - moisture up to 2,000 feet with dry air above that and a cold front moving into the state from thenorthwest.
“Put that meteorological grab bag together, and this is what you get,” Goudsward said.
Similar conditions could be repeated today, he said.
“It looks like the event is kind of winding down for the night,” Goudsward said at 10:20 p.m. “The event is morphing from a tornadic event to a heavy rain event. However, it looks like we could have a repeat tomorrow afternoon but more to the south and east.” Information for this article was provided by Chad Day, Kenneth Heard, Alison Sider and L. Lamor Williams of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/01/2010