HIGGINSON -- Wednesday morning's sunshine illuminated tornado damage in northeast Arkansas that far exceeded what officials first thought.
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Officials estimate that about 60 homes were damaged and at least seven destroyed.
White County residents like Richard Thompson, 68, of Kensett caught the worst of the storms. Thompson's roommate, who suffered a broken wrist and a lacerated eye, was one of six people in the county taken to a Searcy hospital with injuries that weren't life-threatening.
Thompson's home sat in the path of one of two confirmed twisters Tuesday evening that rumbled through the small communities just east of Searcy. Thompson spent Wednesday morning cleaning debris and pondering how to remove a black Chevrolet truck from beneath his collapsed carport.
"I couldn't believe it when I looked around this morning," he said. "But we're lucky. Someone could've been killed."
The same storm system leveled more than 100 homes across several central states, killing two people in Illinois and one in Missouri.
The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said it received about two dozen reports of possible tornadoes overnight Tuesday.
National Weather Service surveyors in Arkansas confirmed a pair of tornadoes jolted the small towns of Higginson and Kensett.
An EF1 tornado with winds topping 110 mph cut a 1.5-mile path near Higginson, according to the National Weather Service in North Little Rock.
The storm cell continued northeast about 4 miles along Arkansas 87, where surveyors confirmed an EF2 swept through Kensett, a town of about 1,650.
The storms, known as supercells, formed Tuesday evening over Arkansas as a strong, 160-mph jet stream moved over the state, said John Lewis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in North Little Rock.
The attendant cold front, stemming from the Mountain West region, collided with warm, moist Gulf air and caused the volatile weather to form, he said.
"Everything was in balance," Lewis said. "The storms lasted a long time, and they were quick moving."
He said the storm cells, which came on the leading edge of the cold front, raced across the state at a 70-mph clip.
Higginson and Kensett residents used the same words to describe the tornadoes, saying the twisters sounded like freight trains -- fast, deafening and shaky.
But by Wednesday afternoon the storms were a blur, and those affected were focused on rebuilding their houses and in some cases their lives.
Vera Pruitt, 90, of Kensett lost her home of 30 years. The swirling winds tore a gaping hole in the front of her house and flung a lifetime of memories throughout the yard. Winds tossed her piano a few feet into the front yard and a ceiling fan about 40 feet to the side of the home.
About a mile down the road, Thompson was asking a stranger to provide his dog, Bear, some food.
"He had a tough ride," Thompson said, looking at the tail-wagging pooch.
A neighbor had found the dog two blocks away in a drainage ditch after the storm had passed.
"His name's Bear, but I think we're going to start calling him Tornado, " Thompson joked.
Across the region, people took a day off from work to help neighbors in need. They carried chain saws, trash bags and bottles of water.
"That's just the way people are in this part of Arkansas," Higginson Mayor Randell Homsley said. "We bicker and we fight, but everybody pitches in to help when something bad happens."
American Red Cross workers flocked to the damaged homes, and enterprising repairmen handed out fliers.
Friends and volunteers helped remove three fallen trees from Cristy Massey's home in Higginson. By lunchtime Wednesday, only stumps remained.
"I'm really emotional," she said. "They took the time out of their day to climb on my roof with chain saws just to help. I'm so thankful."
As Massey spoke with a reporter, a car stopped on the road to ask if she needed anything to eat.
"See what I mean," she said.
Homsley, the mayor, estimated that it would be a couple of weeks before the town was back close to normal.
Other counties that sustained damage were Van Buren, Sharp, Crawford, Searcy, Izard, Independence, Conway, Jackson, Johnson, Cleburne, Greene, Lawrence and Mississippi.
At a state prison in Newport, several staff mobile homes were damaged and an employee suffered a minor injury. There was some minor damage to the prison, but no inmates were hurt.
About 10,000 homes in the state remained without power Wednesday evening, according to Entergy.
The utility estimates that many of those customers would have power restored by this evening, but more remote areas may have to wait until Friday.
A second wave of storms rolled through eastern Arkansas early Wednesday with winds gusting up to 80 mph, according to Lewis, the meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Winds downed power lines and trees at Williams Baptist College in Walnut Ridge in Lawrence County, and police said three cars were struck by fallen trees. Walnut Ridge Regional Airport reported 78-mph winds.
In Ravenden, also in Lawrence County, crews had to clear trees that had fallen across railroad tracks to allow train passage early Wednesday.
Winds up to 68 mph blew two tractor-trailer trucks off Interstate 555 between Bay and Jonesboro, said Jeff Presley, director of Jonesboro's E911 center. Winds also blew the roof off a home in eastern Craighead County and knocked power out to most of Caraway. Monette and Black Oak also reported damage to homes and farm buildings, Presley said.
"We had it everywhere," he said.
There were no reports of tornadoes in the area. Presley said he suspected straight-line winds caused the damage.
Officials believe that storms also may have caused a fire that damaged a 70-year-old theater in Leachville. City Clerk Ruth Keith said a part of the Melody Theater burned early Wednesday.
Firefighters have not determined the cause of the blaze but said a storm that went through the Mississippi County town at the time of the fire produced lightning.
"The back area behind the stage burned," Keith said of the theater that was built in the mid-1940s. "The winds came up with that storm. If they [firefighters] didn't get there right then, it would have been gone in five minutes."
In Pulaski County, Wednesday morning's storm knocked out 10 electric utility poles along Arkansas 391 in North Little Rock, leaving 500-600 houses served by North Little Rock Electric Department without power in the Faulkner Crossing and Stone Links subdivisions, according to city spokesman Nathan Hamilton.
North Little Rock Electric customer outages were primarily east of Arkansas 391 and north of U.S. 165 and north and south of Faulkner Lake Road.
All 10 poles had been restored by Wednesday evening.
Skies are expected to remain clear throughout the weekend with temperatures reaching the mid-60s each day.
The forecast is welcome news for Massey in Higginson. Her carport was destroyed, but the fallen pecan trees saddened her most.
"Those were my babies," she said. "I guess I'll replant some small ones. Start from scratch. That's all I can do."
Information for this article was contributed by Jake Sandlin of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and by The Associated Press.
Metro on 03/02/2017