In Vilonia, crews look for injured

Homes, stores, power lines desolated by fatal tornado

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RICK MCFARLAND --04/27/14--  People in Vilonia make their way to shelter after a tornado hit the area Sunday evening. A baby is treated at the triage on Hwy 64.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RICK MCFARLAND --04/27/14-- People in Vilonia make their way to shelter after a tornado hit the area Sunday evening. A baby is treated at the triage on Hwy 64.

Correction: Lindsay Rider of Vilonia works at the Big Red convenience store on Main Street in Vilonia. This article incorrectly identified her place of employment.

VILONIA - Two hours after a tornado rammed through the city, some 50 people huddled at Fred’s Store, volunteering to go street to street, house to house to search for any injured.

Just an hour after that at First Baptist Church, about 200 people, including fire crews from other counties, emergency personnel and residents, began preparations for an extensive search.

As helicopters flew overhead at Fred’s Store, Steven Grimes said he had just been at a subdivision near Naylor Road.

“Of everything I saw there, there was not a whole lot left to look at,” he said. “It was just gone. There’s no neighborhood there now.”

Grimes pulled into the convenience store with his wife, Krystal, after passing J&D Supply LLC and a Centennial Bank branch on Main Street - both of which sustained damage from the tornado, he said. Power lines were downed, and gas mains were leaking. Chunks of highway railing lay in curled balls, tangled up with insulation and siding from homes.

Vilonia Fire Chief Keith Hillman said that as of 11 p.m. Sunday, the storm had killed five people in Vilonia.

Trees lay on houses in the Parkwood Meadow subdivision, off Naylor Road. There, almost all of the 50 homes were gone, Hillman said.

“The rest of the houses were leveled,” he said.

A man who didn’t want to give his name broke down crying, gasping out, “Lord, y’all, I can’t do this again.”

Authorities set up storm shelters at three schools in Vilonia before the tornado hit around 7:30 p.m. Up to 400 people took shelter at Vilonia High School, where people also lined up for medical treatment.

At least eight people suffered cuts and superficial wounds from flying debris - one woman suffered cuts on both her legs from her knees down to her ankles. Another man with several cuts was taken off a stretcher from the back of a sport utility vehicle at the high school.

Elsewhere, emergency personnel treated people with minor injuries in the back of SUVs and pickups, as ambulances rushed in from neighboring cities.

Lindsay Rider, a clerk at Fred’s Store at Arkansas 107 and Main Street, was working when the tornado sirens began sounding. The employees then got a call from the store manager telling them to lock the store down.

“We were getting really afraid because it was really loud,” the 27-year-old said, adding that they emerged when things got quiet. “The doors had blown open. There was debris and lots of broken stuff.”

Rider said when she looked outside, she saw a woman and three children, bloody and running down the street.

“They were asking for help,” Rider said. “Their boy, who was about 9, had a laceration on his head, and there was blood everywhere.”

She helped tend to the boy until emergency personnel got there. Another one of the children, a toddler, had passed out, she said.

Afterward, Rider said she tried to call her fiance, who lives in a mobile home, and panicked when she couldn’t reach him.

Rider kept calling until she saw her fiance running toward the store with her daughter.

Keith Camp, another Vilonia resident, had been filming the storm on U.S. 64 when it grew quiet.

Camp hurried his wife and young daughter into their home, huddling in the bathtub under a blanket. Camp threw himself over the two just before the windows exploded and the roof tore off, he said.

“I don’t know how I’m going to pay for it, how I’m going to fix it,” he said. “I’m disabled and in two weeks, I have to get back surgery. You know, you think about these things. But the more important thing is everyone is OK.”

Pair had 12 minutes head start on twister

Deadly tornado slams state

Front Section, Pages 5 on 04/28/2014

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