Jonesboro residents note tornado's fury; as cleanup begins, many marvel that it wasn’t worse

Johnny Washington (left) removes debris from his home on Sunday after it was destroyed by the tornado that hit Jonesboro on Saturday afternoon. More photos at arkansasonline.com/330tornado/. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)
Johnny Washington (left) removes debris from his home on Sunday after it was destroyed by the tornado that hit Jonesboro on Saturday afternoon. More photos at arkansasonline.com/330tornado/. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)

JONESBORO -- On Sunday morning, Harold Perrin estimated that his city suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in damage when it was raked by a tornado late Saturday afternoon. But he said it could have been a lot worse.

"It appears no lives have been taken," the Jonesboro mayor said. "That is the good news that we cling to through this devastating event. If I've ever witnessed a miracle, this is it."

The powerful tornado that ripped through Jonesboro's commercial center on Saturday mangled the mall and airport, wrecked cars and scattered large chunks of debris.

With roughly 50% of the damage counted, the northeast Arkansas chapter of the American Red Cross reported that more than 50 private residences were destroyed and as many as 200 structures received some damage.

The storm injured 22 people, but none of their wounds were life-threatening. Authorities said two people were hospitalized.

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In a strange silver lining, Perrin pointed out that Arkansans staying home during the coronavirus pandemic may have contributed to the low number of injuries when the tornado tore through restaurants and the mall.

"Thank God that he was watching out for our citizens of Craighead County and Jonesboro last night," Craighead County Sheriff Marty Boyd told reporters Sunday.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson declared a state of disaster Sunday. The unprecedented combination of a tornado strike and the coronavirus outbreak has created simultaneous disasters, Hutchinson said in a news release.

"This clearly meets the threshold to declare a state disaster, and I believe it will meet the federal level as well," Hutchinson said.

The declaration opens the door for the state to request federal government funds.

County Judge Marvin Day got choked up at a news conference Sunday morning when asked what the response to the tornado shows about the community.

"This is such a great place to live, and people love each other," Day said. It's not just Craighead County, Day added, explaining that he has heard from county judges and mayors asking what they can do to help.

Officials said the search-and-rescue effort underway the night before was complete as of about 9:30 a.m. Sunday morning.

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THE MALL

The cleanup after the storm will challenge the city's efforts to maintain social distancing during the outbreak. In just one example, a large group of workers in hard hats were clustered together picking up debris at the Mall at Turtle Creek near the side of the road Sunday.

Target, Barnes and Noble, Dillard's and J.C. Penney were among the stores that absorbed major damage from the tornado.

The entrances to the Best Buy and Barnes and Noble, in particular, were rendered unrecognizable. Much of the Best Buy's roof appeared to have caved in. The ruined interior of the Barnes and Noble was visible from the sidewalk because the building's facade had been torn apart.

Dr. Jim Guntharp, a veterinarian and the owner of Jonesboro Family Pet Hospital across the street from the mall, was cleaning up the damage on Sunday morning along with others as he tries to reopen his clinic as soon as possible.

Two employees were in the building on Saturday when the tornado hit, he said, and they luckily missed being hit by a metal beam that went through the ceiling and pierced a wall.

A pug, some mixed-breed dogs and some cats were inside, too. None of the animals were hurt, Guntharp said. "Because of the covid-19, we were way down," Guntharp remarked of the number of pets in the business's care.

He estimated the property damage at a couple hundred thousand dollars.

"They're saying that our electricity won't be on for maybe a week," Guntharp said. It's unclear whether the X-ray and ultrasound machines will still function when powered by a generator, he said.

When the tornado was moving through town en route to the mall, Joshua Woodard, 20, of Jonesboro was inside a Panera Bread restaurant on Stadium Boulevard, where he works as a shift leader.

"As soon as I locked the doors, I looked over, and it was taking the building across the street," he said. From inside, he could see debris flying around in the sky.

Woodard hid in the cooler in the back of the restaurant for a minute or two, he said. By the time he came out, the storm had passed and was nearing the mall.

He said he wasn't scared at the time, calling the tornado "pretty cool at first." But afterward, "it kind of hit me, I guess," Woodard said. "A big old tornado right there beside me."

The building had a couple of windows boarded up on Sunday morning, and staff members like Woodard were waiting to get the power back on.

Multiple hangars at the Jonesboro Municipal Airport were wiped out along with the main terminal, according to Bill Campbell, a city spokesman. The extent of the damage leaves the city without an airport for the foreseeable future.

Approximately 85% of the planes were damaged, according to Day, the county judge.

When the tornado hit, Lucynthia Johnson, 49, took shelter in a closet at her house in a neighborhood near the airport. Before the tornado touched down, her family had just parked a rented Penske moving truck filled with new furniture in the driveway.

The wind flipped the rental truck out of their driveway, and it landed on top of their pickup parked next door.

Johnson, who works as a machine operator for Frito-Lay, said she had no clue how they would right the overturned vehicle. The company said it would send someone out today to assess the situation, she said.

She called the storm "the scariest moment of my life." Fortunately, no one was hurt because they managed to get to safety indoors.

Large strips of metal, which Johnson suggested may have blown off the roof of the airport, were scattered around the property and even draped over the upper boughs of a nearby tree.

STATE OF EMERGENCY

Day issued an emergency declaration in the county on Saturday night, and the state extended its state of emergency, already in place for the coronavirus outbreak, to aid the county's emergency response.

According to a news release, the Arkansas National Guard on Sunday provided 200 cots to shelter locations in the city in response to a request from the state's emergency management agency.

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AIRPORT DAMAGE

After touring the area from a helicopter on Sunday afternoon, Hutchinson in a news conference said, "I have not seen this level of devastation in a tornado since I have been governor."

Businesses that were destroyed could qualify for disaster loans as part of the recently approved federal coronavirus aid package, Hutchinson said.

He emphasized that recovery efforts in Jonesboro have to be guided by the social-distancing efforts designed to slow the coronavirus outbreak.

"These aren't social gatherings; these are recovery gatherings, but the same principle applies," Hutchinson said.

TORNADO'S PATH

The National Weather Service office in North Little Rock reported the tornado that hit Jonesboro began in Jackson County just after 4:15 p.m. Saturday, according to a public information statement.

Weather service meteorologist Erik Green said the tornado lifted off the ground before touching back down in Craighead County.

"We had the initial tornado in Jackson County while it was still in our county warning area," Green said. "Then, as it was more-or-less probably crossing the county line, it lifted moving into Craighead."

The tornado's damage trail ended less than a mile from the Poinsett County line, the statement said.

The storm intensified significantly as it moved into the National Weather Service's Memphis coverage area just before 5 p.m., becoming an EF3 tornado at peak winds.

Starting northwest of the Interstate 555 and Caraway Road interchange, it caused EF2 damage near Caraway Road and Race Street before damaging the Mall at Turtle Creek, according to a statement from the National Weather Service office in Memphis.

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The storm was at its most intense stage when it hit the Jonesboro airport, before it weakened and ended northeast of Brookland just before 5:15 p.m., the statement said.

There was also a tornado in southeast Greene County, which was rated an EF1, according to the statement.

It started south of U.S. 412 and west of Greene County Road 412 at 5:25 p.m., damaging an industrial building, a grain bin, trees and a couple of other buildings.

'WE WILL REBUILD'

All around Jonesboro on Sunday, families began the arduous task of assessing the damage and salvaging their belongings.

Johnny Washington tossed a board onto the heaping pile of rubble outside his home in the Bridger Place subdivision off Bridger Road.

Dozens of family members and volunteers sifted through the brick, wood and glass that was all that was left of Washington's house.

His extended-cab red Chevrolet truck sat crumpled in the midst, next to three other vehicles that suffered a similar fate.

He was at home Saturday afternoon with his wife, Dorothy King, and four of his family members, including two children under the age of 3, when the tornado struck. King, a Navy veteran, is in home hospice care for a lung disease, diabetes and congestive heart failure.

Washington pointed to what used to be his front door, but is now just a frame, barely standing.

"All of us were downstairs. I just cannot describe it when it first hit," Washington said. "My wife, somehow, jumped out of her wheelchair and threw her body on the baby. He was only 1½. The 3-year-old was at the front door looking out. I threw him under me. There wasn't a scratch on us when it was over."

King, though, had to be taken to the emergency room because of her health issues. She was treated and released soon after.

Across the street, Joe Haynie pushed a plastic cart full of household items that were salvaged from his home that was leveled, with pieces of brick wall jutting up through the rubble.

As soon as the tornado dissipated, neighbors rushed to pull Haynie and his wife, Martha, both in their 70s, out of the home through a broken window in the back by the swimming pool.

The couple and their dog had taken shelter in an interior bathroom, hunkered down in the bathtub with pillows for cover. It was the only room that did not have damage.

"We just wrapped our arms around each other and then it hit," Martha Haynie said. "It seemed like it lasted forever. He stepped out and said, 'The roof is gone.' Then we looked around, and it was total devastation. It's a miracle nobody in the neighborhood was killed."

Martha Haynie marveled at a large glass-encased picture on the mantle. The picture leaned against the brick, untouched in exactly the position she had left it. Two crosses hung perfectly straight on a still-standing piece of an interior wall.

"We will rebuild," she said, adding that the couple will alternate living with their son and their daughter until they are able to return home.

Street after street was lined with homes in various degrees of damage. Most were a total loss. Some were untouched.

Most of the roofs were gone, while some only had a few shingles out of place. A baby bed and a crocheted blanket were perched in the middle of rubble where a home once stood.

The hood of a child's battery-powered Ford truck peeked out from jagged lumber and broken glass.

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Families and volunteers carried any furniture and household items as well as clothes -- some still on hangers and others stuffed inside black garbage bags -- that they could salvage from the homes onto the front yard or driveway. Trucks and trailers loaded with the belongings and household appliances maneuvered the crowded streets.

Pieces of tin were wrapped tightly around tree limbs throughout the neighborhood.

Ed Salo was cooking a ham in the crockpot at the time the storm hit. Mangled mini blinds still hung from two windows above the kitchen sink, with lumber jutting through the broken glass.

"It was almost done, too," he said, with a laugh.

In one of the bedrooms, black metal bunk beds covered in debris stood in front of a shattered window.

In another bedroom, a piece of two-by-four lumber pierced a closet door, missing the still-made bed just inches away.

'BLESSING IN DISGUISE'

Ann Gibson and her husband, Hubert, had been sheltering in place at their home on Bridger Road, trying to avoid exposure to the coronavirus, when the tornado touched down.

"It was almost a blessing in disguise," Gibson said. "This would've been a whole lot worse if the stores and restaurants had not been shut down because of the virus."

Across the street, their daughter Gayle Gibson was pulling pieces of lumber and other debris from the ditch while her nephew Dax Gibson raked the refuse into a pile.

"We were trying to keep them quarantined and then look," Gayle Gibson said, pointing to her parents' house. "I guess you've got to pick the lesser of two evils. Pick your poison."

Some homeowners, volunteers and first responders throughout the disaster areas wore face masks, while the vast majority were without the protective equipment.

Volunteers from Cornerstone United Methodist Church walked the damaged areas, handing out homemade cloth masks with an admonition to "Put it on. Stay safe."

"We've got 100 masks right now," said Susanne Belk, who said the protective pieces were made by the church's "Cornerstone Stitchers" club. "We'll have a 100 more by the end of the day. We're giving them all away, and we're praying for everybody."

Lynn Suitt, whose home had damage to the attic roof and the back porch, said that after the storm had passed, she and her husband, Mike Suitt, just "hugged and hugged" their neighbors.

"We figured if we could live through this, covid-19 was not going to kill us," Lynn Suitt said.

[DOCUMENT: ASU chancellor updates students, staff on aftermath of tornado in open letter: arkansasonline.com/330chancellor]

HELPING HANDS

Volunteers from churches, businesses and nonprofit organizations rallied the troops Saturday after the storm cleared and showed up at daylight Sunday with helping hands.

Crowds gathered in the parking lot of The Rock Church early Sunday, with gloves and boots, to get their assignments for the day.

Supplies -- such as water, food, tarps and hygiene products -- were dropped off at various places, like Lost Pizza off Southwest Drive.

All-terrain vehicles with ice chests filled with bottles of cold water and bags of sandwiches and snacks wound through the damaged areas, with people passing the goods out to the workers. Portable tables filled with food and drinks were set up outside homes.

"I've never seen volunteers come out like this," said Chiquita Rapert, reaching her arm to span her neighborhood. "People just came in and got to work. It's just amazing. Officers from the Jonesboro Police Department and firefighters were here at the break of dawn."

Adam Huskey, the plant manager of Great Dane Trailers, and other employees tarped roofs and carried out debris.

Donna Gibson said she went to the grocery store and "grabbed all we could," then handed out sandwiches and drinks to workers.

Tents and trailers were set up outside Grace Point Church of Christ. The church partnered with Valley View Church of Christ to grill burgers and open the doors so residents and volunteers could use the restrooms. Church volunteers packed dozens of foam containers of food into a van and delivered the meals to the damaged areas.

Chase Almond, pastor of Grace Point, said a steady stream of people would drive up to the church with donations of food and supplies.

"This is what the church is built for," Almond said. "The human spirit is inspiring."

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