A violent storm system spawned four tornadoes and flooded rivers Thursday evening and Friday morning in Arkansas, killing at least three people - including the Scott County sheriff - and injuring several. Several people remained missing Friday evening.
Gov. Mike Beebe declared disasters in Cross, Montgomery, Poinsett, Polk, Scott and Van Buren counties. Other counties were expected to be added to the declaration, a Friday news release from his office said.
A National Weather Service survey team from North Little Rock confirmed four tornadoes caused damage in Polk, Garland and Montgomery counties Thursday evening. Meteorologist Brian Smith said he expects the team will confirm several more tornadoes once they complete tours of damage sites early next week.
At the peak of the storms, more than 32,000 utility customers lost power, although most had service restored by late Friday.
Scott County Sheriff Cody Carpenter died and state Game and Fish Commission wildlife officer Joel Campora was among the missing Friday after the pair tried to rescue two women from a Y City home inundated by a flash flood.
Sebastian County Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck said Carpenter and Campora boarded a motorboat just after midnight Thursday on the raging Mill Creek after two women called the sheriff’s office for help after rising flood waters surrounded their home.
Carpenter and Campora motored to the home on the banks of the creek. Hollenbeck said other Scott County deputies who also responded to the call and were standing on the opposite bank heard a loud crash and thought a bridge nearby had collapsed.
“Looking into it further, they discovered the house had imploded as a direct result of waters from Mill Creek,” Hollenbeck said.
Searchers recovered Carpenter’s body from the river about 8 a.m. Friday about a mile downstream from the home. Searchers had not located Campora late Friday but recovered the boat and motor.
“We are here for recovery or rescue,” Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Director Mike Knoedel said Friday. “We’re still remaining optimistic about our officer at this time.”
The two women Carpenter and Campora tried to save also were missing Friday,Hollenbeck said. He said officials don’t know if they were swept away in the flood waters or were able to escape.
Carpenter, 41, was well known in the area, having grown up in Waldron and was serving his fifth term as sheriff. He began working for the sheriff ’s office in the mid-1990s, serving as jailer, dispatcher, patrol deputy, criminal investigator and chief deputy. He also served six years as a member of the Scott County Quorum Court.
He and his wife, Amie, have four children.
“He was just a great guy,” said Jim Atchley of Parks. “I’ve known him since the first grade.”
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said in a statement Friday that the sheriff “demonstrated his professionalism, courtesy and dedication to the people of Scott County every day,” adding, “I will always be grateful for his heroism, service and extraordinary sense of duty to his fellow man.”
Knoedel said Campora, 32, of Waldron has been a Game and Fish wildlife officer for seven years.
“He was doing was he was trained to do last night,” he said.
Two others perished in their vehicles during the storm.
A woman was found dead in her car off U.S. 71 on Friday from what Hollenbeck said was the result of flooding. He did not identify her because her next of kin had not been notified, and he could not pinpoint the location where she was found.
Daniel Earnest, 33, of Prattsville, died Friday morning when high winds blew a tree onto his car while he was driving on Arkansas 291 in Tull in Grant County, state police Cpl. Ryan Jacks reported.
Brandon Morris, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, said rescue efforts continued Friday afternoon.
“We’ve heard reports of search-and-rescue operations being ongoing. People being trapped because of high water in certain areas.”
Philip Pevehouse, a Sebastian County sheriff’s investigator helping with the rescue effort in neighboring Scott County, said the water had been rushing across U.S. 71 north of Y City early Friday.
“There are still several that are missing,” Pevehouse said. “The way water came over the road, there may be people we don’t even know are missing yet.”
Hollenbeck said the search-and-rescue efforts Friday were scaled back at 6 p.m. to allow some searchers to leave the area before dark. Thunderstorms and heavy rain was forecast Friday night and today. He said the weather would be monitored, and steps would be taken to evacuate homes if flooding made it necessary.
“We don’t want to lose any more personnel,” Pevehouse said. “We’ve got some overnight crews that are going to stay. We’ve got some that are going until they can’t go anymore. That water’s still moving fast and is really dangerous.”
POWER KNOCKED OUT
The storms formed Thursday afternoon as a frontal boundary system crossed the central third of the state, drawing dry air and warm, humid air together. Rising temperatures in the afternoon fueled the powerful system, Smith said.
Entergy Arkansas, the state’s largest utility, reported power was knocked out to 31,000 homes and businesses Thursday evening.
Entergy spokesman Brady Aldy said 1,254 workers - including 300 from four other states - helped restore service Friday. By Friday evening, just more than 3,595 customers remained without power, mostly in Garland, Montgomery and Pulaski counties.
North Little Rock Electric also reported 1,200 customers without service Thursday evening. By midday Friday only a handful of customers had no service, said spokesman Jill Ponder.
Heavy rains Thursday night led to the flooding of Mill Creek and the Fourche LaFave River in western Arkansas. Charles Belton of the National Weather Service office in North Little Rock said 7.78 inches of rain fell in the Parks community of southern Scott County on Thursday.
The flooding destroyed and damaged several homes in the Parks, Boles and Y City areas of south Scott County. The high water washed out three bridges on Arkansas 28 east of U.S. 71, stranding several residents.
Parks Fire Chief Julie Evans said one diabetic woman stranded by the downed bridges needed medical help Friday, but there was no way to reach her.
The search-and-rescue effort in Scott County for Campora and the missing women drew an estimated 200 law-enforcement, emergency medical personnel and volunteer firefighters to the area. Vehicles were parked on the side of the highway with boats up on trailers because the flood waters were too swift to launch watercraft.
Instead, most of the searching of the flooded waterways Friday was done on foot and by air with an Army National Guard helicopter.
The Guard sent the Black Hawk helicopter and crew of five people at about 8 a.m. Friday after a request from Scott County officials for immediate Arkansas Department of Emergency Management assistance, spokesman Lt. Col. Keith Moore said.
Many of the searchers on hand Friday knew Carpenter but put the grief aside for the work ahead of them.
“They’ve got a mission to do,” Scott County Judge James Forbes said. “We all know what we lost. We’re going to do our mission.”
Forbes said officials were just beginning to assess the damage to homes and businesses in southern Scott County, much of it in rural terrain.
As the search continued Friday, Hollenbeck said, the scope of the operation grew. In some areas, the swollen streams flooded areas as wide as a half-mile, increasing the search area.
The receding waters revealed several vehicles that had been swept away by the flood waters. He said Sebastian and Scott county sheriff’s deputies and Arkansas State Police investigators were tracking down the owners Friday to determine whether they were safe.
Meanwhile, volunteers opened Parks United Methodist Church to those displaced by the flooding.
One volunteer, Peggy Catron, said the church opened its doors about 10:30 a.m., offering food and water to anyone who walked in the door. She said officials with Tyson, Planters and Dollar General offered to donate food and supplies to those who needed them, she said.
Jennifer Vickers, who lives near Parks with her husband, David, and daughter Brittany said they had to pack up and leave suddenly early Friday, when flood waters got within 8 feet of their home. She said the home could flood if it rained again Friday night.
‘IT WAS SCARY’
The weather service team confirmed two tornadoes in Polk County - one near Rocky, and another in Cove - one near Royal in Garland County and one in Oden in Montgomery County.
The winds ripped the roof off a house in Oden, and flood waters pushed a house near Pencil Bluff into the Ouachita River.
Vickie Rice stood near the storm shelter at her mother-in-law’s home in Oden on Thursday evening and watched as the twister tore through a valley by her home.
“I looked toward my home and saw debris flying,” Rice said. “I thought my house was destroyed.”
She said when the tornado passed, she returned to her home and saw it was undamaged. A neighbor’s home was hit, though, she said.
“This was my second tornado,” she said. “It was scary.”
David Lebow woke to rising waters inside his Oden home. In an interview with Arkansas Online, Lebow said he heard an “awful noise” in the house.
“When I jumped up, it was half-knee deep in the house,” he said. “The house went to listing just like one of those big ol’ ships fixing to turn over in the ocean.”
Lebow said his house was swept off the foundation and crashed into a tree, splitting in half. He and his wife, Mary Ann, swam out and grabbed onto a tree.
“I was hoping maybe I could get some help from God, or I was hoping the devil wasn’t watching,” he said.
He called for help as soon as he saw rescuers, and he and his wife were saved.
In Wickes, in southwestern Polk County, city crews cleared fallen trees across roads from what Fire Chief Terry Holman said was a tornado.
“It came as a funnel and started blowing things away,” he said.
Holman said a mobile home and storage building were destroyed, and trees littered the area along a 1-mile path.
In Clark County, Amity Police Chief Albert Porter said a home was destroyed by high winds.
“It took some trees down, but we’re cleaning it up,” he said.
The storms raked much of the state with high winds, hail, lightning and rain. The National Weather Service received reports of wind damage as far east as Brinkley in Monroe County.
Drew County reported 1.75-inch diameter hail, and Hot Springs saw 1.5-inch diameter hail.
Trees blew onto homes in Maumelle, and 3 feet of water covered roads in Ferndale in Pulaski County.
High winds blew a barn into the intersection of Arkansas 38 and Arkansas 31 west of Butlerville in Lonoke County. Two tractor-trailers blew off Interstate 40 near Brinkley early Friday morning, forcing the closure of the interstate.
A National Weather Service observer reported 7.78 inches of rain fell east of Waldron between 8 a.m. Thursday and 8 a.m. Friday. Another observer measured 7.92 inches over the same period 3 miles north of Mena.
The Saline River in Benton went from 3.7 feet at 7 p.m. Thursday to 16.29 feet at 5 p.m. Friday. It’s expected to crest at 18 feet early this morning.
Between 7 a.m. Thursday and 7 a.m. Friday, Scott County received 7.78 inches of rain at the community of Parks, said Marty Trexler , a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. That was the most rain received in Arkansas during that time period, he said.
The river stage at the Fourche LaFave River near Gravelly in southwest Yell County - about 30 miles downstream from Y City - went from 2.23 feet at 5 p.m. Thursday to 32.1 feet at 4:45 p.m. Friday. It was the second-highest crest the river has ever seen, surpassed only by a 32.45-foot reading on Dec. 3, 1982.
Big Fork in Polk County had 7.55 inches of rain. Parts of Garland and Montgomery counties received more than 6 inches of rains.
Brandy Wingfield, a spokesman for the Montgomery County sheriff’s office, said two people were rescued Friday morning after flood waters washed a house near Pencil Bluff into a flooded section of the Ouachita River.
The house didn’t reach the main river channel, said Gary Fox, a dispatcher with the Montgomery County sheriff’s office who was at the rescue scene around 5 a.m. Friday.
“It got hung up on a fence,” he said. “They were hanging on to the walls of the house. First responders were able to get to them.”
Wingfield said an elderly woman suffered minor injuries when the tornado took the roof off her house near Oden.
“It left the sides but her whole roof was gone,” said Wingfield. “It actually lifted it off.”
TWO STRUCK BY LIGHTNING
The vicious storm injured several others Thursday night.
Two people were seriously injured in Rogers when they were struck by lightning, said Tommy Jackson, a spokesman for the Department of Emergency Management.
A woman who was eight months’ pregnant and four children were injured when a storm damaged their mobile home in Amity in northwest Clark County, Sheriff Jason Watson said. Deputies reported seeing a possible tornado on the ground near Arkansas 182, and three other structures were damaged, he said.
The woman and children were treated and released at Baptist Health Medical Center in Arkadelphia, Watson said.
Another Clark County woman received a concussion, Jackson said.
Trexler said there may have been more than four tornadoes, but that will be determined later.
According to reports the weather service received from law enforcement, weather spotters and other sources, possible tornadoes touched down in Montgomery, Pike, Polk and Saline counties. Funnel clouds also were reported in Garland, Hot Spring and Clark counties.
The weather service had completed only one report as of late Friday - for the EF1 tornado near Rocky in Polk County with winds from 86 to 110 mph.
That tornado was 200 yards wide and was on the ground for 0.8 mile. It destroyed a shed, blew the roof off a barn, damaged and house and downed trees, according to the report.
As the storm headed east past Little Rock, a house was reportedly destroyed in Brinkley.
Flooding was reported in Hot Springs, Mena and Little Rock.
The weather service said Little Rock broke a record for the most rainfall in one hour. The new record at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field is 3.09 inches, which fell from 8:17 p.m. to 9:17 p.m. Thursday. The previous record was 3 inches, set in 1955.
Rainfall records for the city have been kept since 1874.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/01/2013