By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader senior staff writer
A pair of National Guard helicopters bearing Gov. Mike Beebe and others touched down at Carlisle Municipal Airport Monday on his whirlwind tour of the latest natural disaster to ravage Arkansans.
Greeted at the airport by state Senator Bobby Glover, state Rep. Lenville Evans, County Judge Charlie Troutman and others, Beebe led a motorcade of officials and reporters on a one-hour tour through the worst of the town’s damage, stopping to inspect the Carlisle Fire Department and a neighborhood where the roof of one home was damaged and another torn off right down to the brick walls.
Speaking from the shaded porch at the Carlisle Police Department, across from the twisted-but-standing shell of the fire department, Beebe said the tornado that tore up houses, uprooted trees, knocked down power poles and sent people scurrying for cover about 1 p.m. Friday apparently was smaller than the twisters earlier in the day that killed seven and tore wider swaths east and south of Carlisle.
“But small or wide, it doesn’t make much difference if you’re in the middle of it,” Beebe said.
Fences were torn up, businesses and homes destroyed or knocked off their foundation blocks or else large trees crashed into homes or were uprooted.
“Lives were turned upside down,” he said, and the terrifying events of the day may stay with some residents forever.
SCHOOL SHELTERS
Beebe said Carlisle school children took shelter in tornado safe rooms during the storms and he hoped schools throughout the state would consider tornado shelters when remodeling or building schools.
“Tornadoes are not as wide as floods,” Beebe said, “but they are awfully intense.”
He praised the television and radio stations that pinpointed the path of the storm and gave five or 10 minutes warning of approaching storms and tornadoes.
“Just enough to save lives,” the governor added.
He said the recovery process already had begun and praised the quick work of officials and neighbors.
Beebe reminded reporters that he had been critical of FEMA’s slow response to the Dumas tornado in February, but this time around, he said, “they were calling us before we even had time to call them.”
Beebe praised the resiliency of residents in towns torn asunder.
“I don’t think FEMA has left the state since February,” he said.
Ironically, the same storms that have caused so much damage throughout the state this year have also kept builders busy in an otherwise sluggish economy.
He said that President Bush had called twice this year to see if there was anything the federal government could do.
PRETTY HOPEFUL
“They are all pretty hopeful, almost to a person. All they lost were houses and possessions and they are ready to get started building back,” the governor said.
He said insurance companies and agents have been helpful and attentive but that if anyone needed help with the companies, the governor’s office and the state Insurance Commission could help.
The governor stopped to talk to Mike Hardke, who was moving possessions from his home, the roof and rafters of which were nowhere in sight. Hardke, who said he took shelter in the master bedroom away from the storm, was expecting a check Monday from his insurance agent.
Including the fire station and the old train depot, Friday’s tornado damaged about two dozen homes, destroying maybe a quarter of them, according to Brent Doney, a volunteer fireman, deputy sheriff and nurse who served as the incident commander at the time of the tornado. He said the tornado siren worked.
PLENTY OF HELP
Volunteers and crews from Carlisle and surrounding communities worked through the weekend, and Monday, chainsaws were still whining and spewing sawdust, while tree trunks were turned to firewood and limbs were chipped into a mountain of mulch.
There were no injuries or deaths caused by the tornado, although there was one minor chainsaw-related injury and a heat problem for one person, Doney said.
Doney, who is also a Carlisle alderman, said crews from CenturyTel and Entergy worked through the weekend and Monday to restore service. All electrical service had been restored except lines to individual damaged homes, he said.
He estimated that Entergy had 50 crews on hand. They also helped put the communications tower back up for the police and fire departments. In the interim, the Lonoke County Sheriff’s Office brought its mobile command center, which provided communications.
A Centerpoint Crew stood by at a home being demolished to cut the gas off. Stuttgart sent a dump truck and a hydraulic clamshell truck to pick up limbs and debris. They had shut off three or four gas leaks in the immediate aftermath of the tornado.
JACKSONVILLE CREW
Jacksonville sent a clam-shell dump truck, operated by Sandy Poe and Steve Medlin.
The Red Cross was providing food for workers, Doney said.
Others providing equipment or manpower in the tornado’s wake were Prairie County—dump trucks and deputies—the Hazen
Police Department, the Lonoke Sheriff’s Office, Lonoke Office of Emergency Management, the England Police Department, the Cabot Police Chief and some officers and a pair of dump trucks and a chipper from the city of Lonoke.
McRrae sent fire and police help, Oak Grove sent some volunteer fire men and Center Point also provided the sue of a back hoe and a dump truck.
Carlisle had recently bought a generator, so Road and Water Superintendent Richard Sumner was able to keep water pressure up and was able to pump water up into its towers, meaning that residents never went without drinking water, nor were they under a boil order, Doney said.
Sumner also coordinated the heavy equipment that was used to help.
The state Correction Depart-ment sent 32 inmates, dressed in their usual white prison garb, to help with the cleanup.
Doney said he thought only one person needed emergency shelter, spending the evenings at Immanuel Baptist Church. He said the church also was feeding people.
The southeast corner of Glover’s office, which is the old railroad depot, was destroyed.
“There wasn’t a trampoline left in town,” Doney said.
