The Sun-Times

Gov. Mike Beebe (center) gets a firsthand look at Greers Ferry tornado damage Monday morning. Here he talks to Bill and Sandra Dunkerson, 30 Emerald Isle (Hurricane Bay). Their brand-new house had a saferoom but no door on it yet; they were protected within it. “We never really heard the house coming apart,” Bill told the governor. “It just sounded like our deck furniture was blowing, scooting around. We thought, ‘Huh, we may not come out ot this too bad!’,” he continued. But they exited the safetoom at the bottom of the house to find that the rest of the dwelling was in ruins. (Sun-Times photo/Randy Kemp)

Greers Ferry digging out from tornado

By Louis Short / Sun-Times Staff

Hundreds of homes were destroyed when an EF3 tornado (wind speeds 136 to 165 miles per hour) struck Cleburne County around 9 a.m. Friday. The tornado, although still not confirmed, is believed to have come within a half mile of the West Side School. The school was full of students at the time of the storm. “As of (Tuesday morning) we know there are approximately 190 homes that received damage,” said Billy Cockrell, director of the Cleburne County Office of Emergency Services. “Of those homes, approximately 30 are completely destroyed. I fully expect the total number of homes hit to exceed 200.” Nearly a dozen businesses were damaged or destroyed in the storm, including damage to one Greers Ferry Fire Station.

The tornado, according to the National Weather Service in Little Rock, trekked over 40 miles, starting near Birdtown in Conway County, traveling near Damascus in Van Buren County, and ending approximately five miles north, northwest of Drasco in Cleburne County. The twister that struck the Greers Ferry area was reported as the strongest in the state during the outbreak Friday. As Doppler radar images showed Heber Springs in the direct path of the storm Friday morning, warning sirens were sounded across the county. The storm was headed directly toward Heber Springs, with an estimated strike time of 8:50 a.m. Just a few minutes before 9 a.m., the storm veered north, hitting Pryor Mountain, Christopher Drive, Burning Tree Road, Emerald Isle, Hwy 92, Frontier Canyon, and other areas around Greers Ferry.

Greers Ferry Mayor Shelly Davis, Greers Ferry Police Chief Ray Dearmon, Greers Ferry police officers, Fire, EMS, Cleburne County Sheriff’s Department, and other area law enforcement were evaluating emergency scenes within minutes of the storm passing. They were out making sure everyone was safe and accounted for; making sure anyone that needed help received help.

More Local News

Funeral services were held Tuesday for a Quitman convenience store clerk who lost her life in Friday’s tornado when it hit the Gravesville Cutoff north of Quitman. Robin Rhea Brumley, her husband Malcom and granddaughter Kadi Brumley all perished in the storm after their house was blown away in the morning storms north of Quitman. Robin Brumley worked at Doublebee’s. Three days after the tornado, friends and family of the Brumleys were still in shock. A Quitman man, who asked to remain anonymous, said he is having a hard time coping with the loss of his friends.

BLUEGRASS MUSIC ROAD - 8:28 a.m. May 2: The day started like any other for Tonya Evans as she drove to her job at Johnson Pharmacy in Quitman. The skies ahead of her were stormy, but everything seemed calm for the woman who lives on Bluegrass Music Road off Highway 356.

Four inches of rain in 45 minutes sent a raging river down Third Street onto Main in Heber Springs around 9:45 a.m. Friday. “Flooding occurred between Second and Third on Main,” said Heber Springs Mayor Jackie McPherson. “With as much rain as we received in such a short amount of time, there wasn’t a significant amount of property damage.

Ruth Stone has lived in the same modest frame house on Hwy 92 just east of Greers Ferry for “forty-something years”, but Friday’s tornado changed everything.

West Side’s 525 students didn’t freak out when told to quietly move from their classrooms and line up facing the walls in the hallways. It’s a drill they do a couple of times a year, and was an exercise most recently done in February when tornadoes ripped through Clinton, about 25 miles to the northwest.

Forty First Electric Co-op power poles were either made into toothpicks or simply knocked over when an EF3 tornado struck the Greers Ferry area around 9 a.m. Friday. First Electric reported approximately 6,800 homes and businesses in Cleburne County were without power at the peak of the outages. “The areas with the larger outages included Brownsville with 3,500; Drasco, 1,700; Tannenbaum, 670; and Edgemont with 570,” said Mary Novak, communication coordinator with First Electric. “There were several scattered outages, especially in and near the Pearson and Edgemont communities.”

Local Sports

The Heber Springs Junior Panthers and Junior Lady Panthers blew away the competition in the 2-4A Conference track and field meet at Panther Stadium. (Sun-Times photo/Will Gilbert)