Scenes of destruction

We took a drive today over to see some of the areas that were hit by the Arkansas EF4 tornado on February 5.

I deliberately did not take my camera along. I wanted to take a look at the area, not to exploit it for my photography. (The picture on the right is from the National Weather Service web site — the license number has been altered for privacy reasons.)

The route I took crisscrossed the path of the tornado from where it crossed the Arkansas River to a point north and west of Morrellton, Arkansas.

The twister crossed the river very close to a nice home that sits overlooking the river. It looked like they only lost a few trees. They were very lucky. Many of the folks at Lucky Landing on Lake Atkins weren’t. Even though it’s been eleven days since the storm, that area is still a mess. I can only imagine how bad it was that night and the next couple of days.

Often, in news stories, they’ll have people saying that devastation when you see it in person is so much worse than what you imagine from the little you see on TV and in pictures. I was a bit surprised in that what we saw was pretty much what I had expected.

I also wasn’t surprised to see how much the media got it wrong. The town center of Atkins wasn’t hit at all. The feed mill that was reported to have been destroyed and blocking highway 64 looked to be in perfect shape when we drove by it today.

The twister also took down four or five transmission towers on the Pleasant Hill 500KV transmission line. As a result, the power plant I am working at is operating at reduced capacity until new towers can be erected and the line repaired.

It’s raining here again. Fortunately, though, this system doesn’t have any severe weather in it, just lots of rain… and some lightning and thuinder.

(Second picture from the National Weather Service: A car from the destroyed dealership in Mountain View (Stone County) was thrown over some professional buildings across the street and ended up in a ravine.)