BENTONVILLE — The National Weather Service says two tornadoes touched down in Benton County on Monday night when a line of severe thunderstorms battered Northwest Arkansas.
An EF1 tornado touched down in the Rocky Branch area near Beaver Lake east of Rogers with wind speeds of 86 to 100 mph. The path of the tornado was one to two miles long and about 200 yards wide, according to Karen Hatfield with the National Weather Service in Tulsa, Okla.
At A Glance (w/logo)
Tornado Scale
The tornadoes that hit Benton County on Monday were rated EF0 and EF1, the lowest on the Enhanced Fujita scale for grading tornadoes.
• The Enhanced Fujita scale ranges from EF0 to EF5.
• EF0 tornadoes have estimated wind speeds of 65 to 85 mph.
• EF1 tornadoes have estimated wind speeds of 86 to 110 mph.
• There were 575 EF0 tornadoes and 241 EF1 tornadoes in the U.S. in 2012.
Source: Staff Report
The tornado hit the Hide A Way Campground and RV Park near K Cove at Beaver Lake, tossing a boat dock and damaging trees, said owner Joanna Gastineau. Campground guests waited out the storm in Gastineau’s safe room.
Gastineau said she was inside and didn’t see the tornado, but saw heavy rain and high wind.
“We had quite a bit of damage,” Gastineau said. “We weren’t sure it was a tornado, but we knew we had something.”
The storm appeared to be heading south to north and hit the cove head on before traveling through a forested area, Gastineau said.
An insurance adjuster planned to visit the campground Thursday. The site had extensive tree damage and moved the boat dock, she said.
The tornado missed at least one home, and most damage was to trees, Hatfield said.
“There was not a lot of structural damage,” she said. “It’s a pretty rural area.”
The National Weather Service confirmed a second tornado north of Siloam Springs after reviewing the site Thursday. The area had extensive tree damage and was rated an EF0 with the possibility of upgrading to an EF1.
Holland Hayden, Siloam Springs’ communications director, said power was out for the entire city from about 11:20 a.m. to 1:50 p.m. Thursday. The city has been told there was a problem with a transformer at a Grand River Dam Authority substation, and all of the utility’s more than 8,000 customers in Siloam Springs were without power, Hayden said.
“It was everybody,” Hayden said. “Residential, industrial and commercial.”
By Thursday afternoon the city hadn’t yet received a detailed explanation of the problem, Hayden said. Much of the city was without power Monday night as the storm moved through the area.
Siloam Springs and other cities around Benton County had damage from straight-line wind that felled trees and damaged homes. Bentonville will pickup downed trees and limbs starting June 4, according to a news release.