SPRINGDALE -- Bill Mock stood on the perimeter of Murphy Park on Friday morning. He looked upon nearly a dozen toppled trees and instructed a work crew member to use as much caution tape as he could find.
It is Mock's job as the city's Parks and Recreation director to survey park damage and coordinate a response. Overnight storm damage was severe and the response needed to be swift, Mock said. Children already had tried to climb the fallen trees.
Murphy Park
The park is named after Robert Murphy, who moved from Texas to Springdale in 1901 and bought 36 acres. Murphy was fatally struck by lightning while putting a new roof on his barn in 1904. Murphy’s family sold 26 acres of the land to the city in 1955 to build a park and swimming pool. The sale was made with the understanding that the park would be named Murphy Park.
Source: Shiloh Museum
Mock's original plan for the day was Murphy in May, a grand reopening for the park, celebrating the completion of renovations that had lasted more than a year. But Friday afternoon's event was canceled and the park closed.
"If there's a blessing to it, it happened when nobody was here," Mock said.
The storm hit the park between midnight and 12:30 a.m. Daylight revealed the jagged remains of towering trees across the 62-year-old park. Some had fallen onto a section of the Springdale Aquatic Center's fence. Large canopies near the pool were bent to the ground.
Chain saws roared as city workers cut the fallen trees into movable pieces. Other crew members were grinding down the sharp edges of split tree stumps and filling in the wide holes left by uprooted trees.
"We want to make sure things are clean and safe for people to come here," Mock said.
Karen Jobe with St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 2898 S. 48th St., said she is thankful homeless people were not in the park when the storm hit. Jobe brings lunch to homeless community members who visit the park.
"I checked with a couple of people and everybody's safe," she said.
Alderman Rick Culver, who represents the ward where Murphy Park is located, said he was shocked the park sustained so much damage on the day it was supposed to officially reopen.
"We worked so hard to get it upgraded, and for this to happen, it's just pretty devastating," Culver said. "It won't be quite the same, but we will still reschedule and have it."
Mock saw a silver lining within the damage.
"We'll come back and replant trees and make the park even better," he said. He hopes to reschedule the ceremony for next week.
It wasn't known yet if a tornado or straight-line wind caused the damage, said Karen Hatfield, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Tulsa, Okla., office.
"Just after midnight there was a line of severe storms that moved across Northwest Arkansas," Hatfield said. "We have had several reports of damage from throughout Benton and Washington counties. It's been mostly tree damage."
Trees were toppled throughout downtown Springdale as well, said Melissa Reeves, the city's public relations director.
"Public Works is out right now taking care of that and cleaning up," Reeves said.
Shiloh Museum's grounds were closed because of fallen branches and tree damage. The museum itself was not damaged and remained open, Reeves said.
Carolyn Reno, assistant director, said the grounds are about as long as a city block.
A fallen branch poked a hole in the roof of the Searcy House, which was built in the 1870s and is the only Shiloh structure that is original to the site, Reno said.
Maintenance personnel and master gardeners showed up to clear the branches and limbs from the museum grounds.
"I think we'll be pretty well clear by the end of the day," she said.
Outside Springdale, emergency officials reported little damage.
"It's mainly been trees down on power lines," Robert McGowen, Benton County's emergency services administrator, said Friday.
Rick Johnson, deputy director of emergency services for Washington County, echoed McGowen.
More than 2,100 Southwestern Electric Power Company customers in the region were without power overnight.
Peter Main, spokesman, said 1,300 of them were in the Greenland area. Power was restored to all but about a dozen customers by early Friday afternoon.
Nancy Plagge, with Carroll Electric, said about 2,500 customers in Benton County, mostly in Pea Ridge and Bella Vista, were without power at the peak of the storm. Power was restored to most areas within three hours. About 330 Benton County customers were without power for as long as nine hours, mostly because of broken power poles. In Madison County, she said, two substations were down with more than 5,000 customers without power for about 33 minutes.
Ozarks Electric Cooperative showed power was restored to all customers in Northwest Arkansas by early Friday afternoon.
Bella Vista Mayor Peter Christie said the city's library was closed because of a downed power line and crews were working to fix the problem at midday.
NW News on 05/20/2017