The National Weather Service confirmed Tuesday that a tornado hit near the Saline County community of Avilla on Monday night as thunderstorms with high winds and hail pushed across the state.
A weather service survey team also was in Fulton County on Tuesday afternoon assessing damage left by a storm that blew through Salem and Mammoth Spring just south of the Missouri border. Straight-line winds exceeding 80 mph are thought to be responsible for numerous uprooted trees, and damage to two homes and to some aircraft and hangars at the Salem Municipal Airport.
More than 5,000 Entergy Arkansas customers lost power during the height of the storms. Power was restored to all but a handful by Tuesday afternoon.
The storms were part of a violent system that spawned nearly two dozen tornadoes in five states and claimed at least two lives in Oklahoma.
The Oklahoma tornadoes destroyed homes, overturned vehicles and stripped the bark from trees as they churned across that state. They were part of a strong weather system that battered the Plains.
Another weather system forecast for today is expected to produce storms from north Texas to near St. Louis.
The Saline County tornado has been classified as an EF1 with wind speeds ranging from 86-110 mph, the weather service's North Little Rock office said in a statement. The twister was on the ground for 6 minutes beginning at 10:32 p.m., the statement says.
The statement says the tornado was 200 yards wide, touched down about 1 mile west of Avilla on the Pulaski County line, and was on the ground for 2.7 miles, lifting up 2 miles north-northeast of Avilla.
No injuries were reported, but 11 homes received slight damage and one home received moderate damage in the area of Tatumville Trail, North Avilla Heights and South Avilla Heights, said Robert McGowan, the emergency management director for Saline County.
"It was mainly trees," McGowan said. "We have not heard of any injuries other than people just being upset. We were very fortunate."
Meanwhile, the Salem airport is closed until authorities can clear storm debris. The storm destroyed two aircraft and a half-dozen open hangars, said Ronald Plumlee, the airport manager.
The destroyed aircraft were a Cessna 182 and a Mooney M20K. Both are single-engine, four-seat planes.
"They are totally destroyed," Plumlee said.
Four other aircraft at the airport were undamaged. A fifth plane, normally at the airport, was away at the time of the storm, he said.
A building used as a terminal and pilots lounge also was destroyed. The pump used to fuel aircraft was heavily damaged, and some lights along the airport's 3,500-foot runway were damaged, according to Plumlee.
"Overall, it's a pretty hard hit for a little town like us," he said. Salem has a population of about 1,600. "We will try to rebuild. We don't know what the total damage is or what money is available, but we will try."
Elsewhere in Fulton County, "trees just everywhere were uprooted" on a path from Bexar northeast to Wheeling and Salem, and on to Mammoth Spring, County Judge Darrell Zimmer said.
"A couple of trees fell on houses. A hay barn lost a roof," he said. "We had a lot of roof damage on homes."
Information for this article was contributed by The Associated Press.
Metro on 05/11/2016