Crews were working to clear debris and restore power on Friday after an EF-2 tornado felled trees and damaged utilities in Hot Springs Village on Thursday evening.
One minor injury was reported in connection to the tornado, which touched down in Garland County just before 8 p.m. and traveled northeast for 8.5 miles before dissipating in neighboring Saline County, according to preliminary information from the National Weather Service.
The gated community of Hot Springs Village straddles the border of Garland and Saline counties. Baseball-sized hail was also reported in that area.
Kelly Hale, the general manager for the Hot Springs Village Property Owners’ Association, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette by phone that the injury occurred when an individual slipped on their deck and hit their elbow.
Approximately 1,500 trees were downed in Hot Springs Village, along with 250 to 300 poles that were sheared off, he said. “We’ve got power lines down throughout the entire area,” he said.
Various state agencies had responded, Hale said shortly after noon on Friday.
“Right now, we’re in a clean-up mode and restoring-power mode, so we’re trying to continue to clear streets out and allow the power companies to get in, do what they need to do,” he said. “And trying to get into residents’ areas, we have some residential areas that weren’t on the main drags that are hit, but there’s limited houses in there, so we’re in the process of just trying to get them in and out of those areas.”
Balboa Baptist Church, located at 415 Ponce De Leon Drive, had been set up as a warming center for people who lacked power so they had a place to stay, according to Hale.
He described the damage to houses as mostly due to trees that had fallen on roofs.
According to a preliminary report issued by the National Weather Service on Friday, the tornado touched down at 7:57 p.m. near AR-7 and Casual Place, where snapped wooden utility poles indicated winds of around 115 miles per hour.
“Extensive tree damage consistent with an EF-2 was observed as the tornado moved northeastward into Hot Springs Village with an impressive number of snapped trunks and uprooted trees,” the report stated. “Through this area, many homes sustained damage primarily from falling trees as opposed to direct tornado winds.”
After the tornado approached Montanoso Circle, where the roof of a building was torn off and thrown approximately 80 yards to the northeast, the tornado appeared to weaken, the report said.
The funnel ultimately lifted near Danville Road and Road 23100. The maximum width of the path was 1,000 yards, according to the report.
Hundreds of customers in Arkansas were still without power Friday in the wake of the severe weather, mostly in Garland County.
According to utility company Entergy, 1,860 Garland customers were without power as of 1:30 p.m. Friday. An additional 274 customers were without power in Pulaski County and 105 in Saline County around the same time, Entergy reported.
Shortly before 6 p.m., 1,434 customers remained without power in Garland, according to Entergy. The number of Entergy customers without power in Pulaski and Saline counties had decreased to 84 and 13, respectively.
The First Electric Cooperative Corp. reported that 481 customers in Saline were without power as of 6 p.m.
Saline County Judge Matt Brumley on Friday issued a verbal disaster emergency proclamation meant to allow the county to receive aid, according to a county news release.
“Hot Springs Village in Saline & Garland Counties received significant damage from last night’s storm. Urban search and rescue teams are finishing up their efforts in Hot Springs Village,” the news release said. “Additionally, the Saline County Office of Emergency Management is working alongside the Garland County Office of Emergency Management and Arkansas [Division] of Emergency Management on a damage assessment.”
Alexa Henning, a spokesperson for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, shared a statement from the governor on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday in which Sanders said state emergency personnel were on the ground in Hot Springs Village “monitoring damage and helping clear debris.”
“We are working quickly to get power back up for every Arkansan,” Sanders said. “Our team is staying in close contact with state and local leadership and my administration will offer any help needed.”
Officials from the Arkansas Division of Emergency Management were in Hot Springs Village to assist local agencies, said Nick Genty, a spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Public Safety.
Genty said he had not heard of significant storm damage in other parts of the state.
Heavy rain in Maumelle on Thursday night led to the evacuation of individuals from two residential complexes, according to Maumelle Fire Department Division Chief Michael Cossey.
Localized flooding occurred across the city, with heavy flooding on Maumelle’s northern edge, he said.
First responders used boats to evacuate a total of 29 people from two complexes located at 2 Windsor Drive and 1500 Union Court, where water had gotten into ground-floor units and inundated vehicles, Cossey said.
No one at the complexes required medical evaluation or transportation by ambulance, he said. Firefighters were “devastated” for their experience but were “absolutely glad that we were able to help them out [Thursday] night,” Cossey added.
When they returned to the nearby Fire Station 1, firefighters discovered that part of the dormitory inside the station had been flooded, too, he said.
In a social media post around 11:45 p.m. Thursday, the National Weather Service said that radar indicated Maumelle had received 4 to 5 inches of rain.
11:15 A.M. UPDATE
HOT SPRINGS VILLAGE — Over a dozen crews from at least six agencies were on the scene Friday morning working to assess and clean up damage in and around Hot Springs Village.
According to Ken Unger, the city’s Public Services director, crews were “still in search and rescue phase.”
The biggest concern for emergency workers was to make sure residents were not in need of medical attention.
“We have a lot of elderly residents here,” he said Friday morning. "They have medical conditions. We’re trying to ascertain their status and if their power is going to be a lot longer than maybe their medical apparatus requires. We’re trying to move them into a safe environment.”
About the power outages, “I just coordinated with them — both First Electric and Entergy, so that if they have inability to get to their power lines, we have heavy equipment that we’re moving into place to help support their tree removal operations and get their power lines restored,” Unger said Friday morning. “Right now we have about 3,000 residents without power, and our hope is that hopefully by the weekend, that number is cut in half. Hopefully, by early next week, that number is gone.”
While an exact path had not been determined, Unger said it appeared the tornado was approximately a quarter-mile wide.
“It came across the Village on a slight 45-degree angle, it looks like so far,” he said.
“And we’ve done some scatter plots of the 911 calls that we’ve gotten and other areas that we’ve seen. I don’t know that we have a full-width estimate yet, but I would bet to say it’s probably a quarter-mile.
“It looks like it bounced through its path. We have areas where we have destruction and there’s nothing and then more destruction, which is not atypical for a tornado in my experience. It ran for pretty good distance, everything west of Minorca (Road) over to Balearic (Road) was probably was in that line, that 45-degree line. And I can’t tell you right now how long it ran. It ran a pretty good distance.”
At one point, around 5,500 Entergy Arkansas customers were without service in Garland County, including the outages in northern Garland County and around 2,500 Entergy Arkansas customers south of Airport Road to the county line.
The outages in the south and western portions of the county were restored by around 9:30 p.m.
— James Leigh, Hot Springs Sentinel-Record
Video not playing? Click here https://www.youtube.com/embed/BPqr-msjLo0
Downed utility lines lie in a parking lot in the 3900 block of Arkansas Highway 7 north Friday morning following severe weather Thursday night. (The Sentinel-Record/James Leigh)
Alvero Way is blocked by multiple trees down Thursday night following a tornado in Hot Springs Village. (Photo courtesy of the Garland County Sheriff's Office)
Storm damage is shown inside Hot Springs Village after a reported tornado Thursday night. (Photo courtesy of the Garland County Sheriff's Office)