VILONIA, Arkansas (AP) – Three years after a tornado devastated the Little Rock suburb of Vilonia, its residents again huddled in storm cellars as the most powerful twister this year carved an 80-mile path of destruction through suburbs north of the state capital, killing at least 16 people.
Emergency officials began to pick through the rubble to look for survivors as the sun rose this morning. The tornado that touched down around 7 p.m. yesterday about 10 miles west of Little Rock grew to be half a mile wide and remained on the ground for much of that route, authorities said.
It was among a rash of tornadoes and heavy storms that rumbled across the centre and south of the country overnight. The National Weather Service warned that the destructive storms were expected to continue today in the South and Mississippi Valley.
Karla Ault, a Vilonia High School volleyball coach, said she sheltered in the school gymnasium as the storm approached. After it passed, her husband told her their home had been reduced to the slab on which it had sat.
“I’m just kind of numb. It’s just shock that you lost everything. You don’t understand everything you have until you realise that all I’ve got now is just what I have on,” Ault said.
The National Weather Service in North Little Rock said it was virtually certain that the storm that hit Vilonia and nearby Mayflower would be rated as the nation’s strongest twister to date this year.
“It has the potential to be EF3 or greater,” said meteorologist Jeff Hood. EF3 storms have winds greater than 136 mph. “Based on some of the footage we’ve seen from Mayflower and where it crossed Interstate 40, things were wrecked in a very significant way.”
Brandon Morris, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, said crews were clearing debris as soon as the sun started to come up today.
“Right now, the main focus is life safety,” Morris said. “We’re trying to make sure everyone is accounted for.”
He said officials are also looking at the environmental impact. “Making sure utilities are cut off in the area. We don’t want anything to get, any fires to start or anything like that.”
Another twister killed a person in Quapaw, Oklahoma, before crossing into Kansas to the north and destroying 60 to 70 homes and injuring 25 people in the city of Baxter Springs, according to authorities in Kansas. A suspected tornado struck near Plain Dealing in northwest Louisiana.
The overall death toll stood at 17 early today.
