Shaken Vilonia eager for schools to reopen

Bells to ring first of week, district hopes

Nabholz project manager Lance Wright (left) leads Micah Moore (center) and Ron Callan on a tour Friday of the tornado-damaged Vilonia Intermediate School, which had been under construction for more than a year. Plans call for starting over on the 95,000-square-foot building and rebuilding it in the same spot.
Nabholz project manager Lance Wright (left) leads Micah Moore (center) and Ron Callan on a tour Friday of the tornado-damaged Vilonia Intermediate School, which had been under construction for more than a year. Plans call for starting over on the 95,000-square-foot building and rebuilding it in the same spot.

VILONIA - A red, white and green digital sign flashed a welcome message to visitors Friday at Vilonia High School - an indication that power has been restored to parts of the tornado-ravaged Faulkner County town.

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The sign read: “Home of the Eagles.”

Past the school, on U.S. 64, a small homemade sign placed in a yard declared, “We will soar again.”

The school will soar a little higher come Monday or Tuesday, when children return to classes for the first time in a week, giving the community a sense that normalcy is returning. Vilonia School District Superintendent Frank Mitchell said he is waiting for the school’s telephone lines to be restored before opening for classes; he should know by today whether they are working, he said.

The Mayflower School District, which also was struck by the EF4 tornado with winds near 200 mph, plans to reopen Monday

Sunday’s twister killed 15 people in Faulkner, Pulaski and White counties. More than 3,000 homes are considered unlivable in Vilonia and Mayflower.

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Vilonia High School soccer players gather at the school Friday to travel to a game in Nettleton despite missing the week of classes in the aftermath of Sunday’s deadly tornado.

“It’s been hard on so many people,” Mitchell said. “The cleanup around here has been fast. We had practice with the tornado three years ago. But we have some families living in their cars and in tents.

“How will they be able to concentrate when they return to school?” he wondered aloud. “A lot of the students don’t have anything but the clothes they were wearing Sunday.”

The school had little damage, Mitchell said. The roof on the elementary school’s cafeteria was damaged, and workers have since covered it. The roof at the high school also had damage.

Facilities at the Mayflower School District are intact, however.

Mitchell said at least 150 of the Vilonia district’s 3,180 students were left without homes after Sunday’s tornado.

Many have moved in with families or friends in the area, but some have had to leave the district. However, they can continue to attend school at Vilonia, provided they get transportation to the district’s edge. He said the state Department of Education will classify those students as “homeless,” enabling them to return to the district despite living elsewhere.

“I don’t know how we’ll organize buses to pick those coming in yet,” he said. “We’ll have to wait to see how many have transportation issues.”

Mitchell said he intends to ask the Education Department for a waiver for the five days the district has been out. The district missed seven days this year because of snow and ice but had five “snow days” built into its schedule, so it has already added the two remaining days onto the end of the school year.

Casey Craun, Vilonia’s junior high football and girls track coach, said returning to school Monday will be the best thing for the community.

“We are creatures of habit,” he said. “This will give a great sense of normalcy. They [students] will be with their friends and teachers who care for them. They’ll be around people who know what they’ve gone through.

“I expect it to be a very emotional day,” he said.

Among students returning to Vilonia are Wyatt Roney, 11, and his brother, Wesson Roney, 6. The two thought about resuming schoolwork next week as they and their mother, Nicole Roney, headed into the McDonald’s restaurant in Vilonia for lunch Friday afternoon.

“I just feel like it’s going to be hard because we’re going to have to catch up” on classwork and projects, Wyatt said. He has a science project due, and now he won’t have as much time to work on it

“Everyone is going to have to put in extra effort,” he said.

In Mayflower, 48 students were displaced by the tornado, said school transportation director Doug Jones. Many have moved into relatives’ homes, and others are living with their families in hotels.

Jones spent Wednesday and Thursday working with the logistics of providing families with transportation to the school.

“We’ve worked hard, but we will get everyone of them here,” Jones said. “Monday will be a big trial for us.”

Two of the district’s four bus routes will remain closed for the rest of the school year because some areas are impassable because of debris.

“We’ve got a good team,” Jones said. “The kids seem to be in good spirits, and coming back may help them. I think it will be a blessing that we’re back in school.”

Dam Road in Mayflower was closed Friday, Faulkner County spokesman David Hogue said, as teams continued cleaning up. City officials also planned to lift the 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew today, he added.

Entergy Arkansas utility crews had planned to restore electrical service to all homes that could receive power by late Friday evening, spokesman Sally Graham said.

During the restoration, a lineman contracted by Entergy, Mason Trent Wilson,21, of Turkey Creek, La., was injured Thursday when he received an electrical shock from a power line on Arkansas 10 in western Pulaski County. A worker there told Pulaski County sheriff’s deputies that Wilson was working in a bucket truck and moved a live line that he thought was dead.

Wilson was taken by medical helicopter to the Baptist Health emergency room in Little Rock. His condition was not available Friday.

Back in Vilonia, Mitchell said Monday’s return to school will be a good sign that the community is recovering. He fears, though, that while crews continue to clean up the damage scattered across the town quickly, the effect of the storm’s wrath will be long felt.

“We’ll lose quite a number of students next year, I think,” Mitchell said. “There are not many places to rent, and it will take a while to build back. They’ll have to go somewhere else and start over.

“And, we’ve had so much loss of real estate and personal property,” the superintendent said. “Seventy-five percent of the businesses are destroyed, and that will affect local taxes. This will impact the school and the city for a long time.”

Information for this article was contributed by Claudia Lauer of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/03/2014

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