One killed, many homes damaged in Arkansas tornadoes
Posted: March 11, 2010 at 9:29 a.m.
LITTLE ROCK — One person has been killed in the tornadoes that cut a path through Arkansas, ripping off rooftops and downing power lines along the way, authorities said Thursday.
“I can confirm that we have one fatality,” Cleburne County Sheriff Marty Moss said, but he declined to identify the victim or provide more details.
Arkansas Department of Emergency Management spokeswoman Renee Preslar had said four people were injured during the storms, including three who were in a home that was destroyed near Pearson in Cleburne County.
Moss would not say whether the victim was among those three.
The storms, which forecasters had been warning about since the weekend, missed much of the state’s populated areas.
About 1,600 customers remained without power Thursday morning, with Entergy Arkansas reporting on its Web site nearly 1,500 outages from southwestern to northeastern Arkansas. First Electric Cooperative reported 83 outages, most of those in Saline County just southwest of Little Rock.
Lt. Scott Courtney of the Saline County Sheriff’s Office said a dozen homes were damaged near Benton, but no injuries were reported.
In southwest Arkansas, a tornado did minor damage to one building and snapped trees near Ozan in Hempstead County. Trees and power lines also were down along a path from near Texarkana in far southwestern Arkansas to near Batesville in the northeast, as high winds ravaged the countryside.
Until this week, the nation had one of the slowest starts to a tornado season. Until a twister Monday at Hammon, Okla., there had been only 42 reports of tornadoes since the start of the year — including just one in February. The nation typically will see 70-100 tornadoes by early March.
Forecasters said moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, a wetter-than-usual winter and a jet stream racing over Tornado Alley could contribute to a rapid uptick in violent storms.
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