A History of Violence

By RALPH HARDIN

ralphhardin@gmail.com T he deadly tornadoes that hit Arkansas on March 31 were not the first violent storms to wreak havoc across The Natural State, and as the storms over Memorial Day weekend in May reminded us, they won’t be the last.

Arkansas sits in the heart of “Tornado Alley” – a loosely defined stretch of the central United States where tornadoes are most frequent. The term was first used in 1952 as the title of a research project to study severe weather in areas of Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska.

While as a colloquial term there are no definitively set boundaries of Tornado Alley, the area common to most definitions extends from Texas, through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, North Dakota, Montana, Ohio, and eastern portions of Colorado and Wyoming.

Research suggests that the main “alley” may actually be shifting eastward away from the Great Plains and into the Mississippi River Valley region, and indeed history does suggest that tornadoes are also becoming more frequent in these parts of the traditionally-defined territory of Tornado Alley where it reaches Arkansas, Missouri and Mississippi.

On December 14, 1987, Crittenden County saw one of the worst natural disasters in its history when an EF3 tornado tore through West Memphis, killing five people and leaving millions of dollars in damage behind.

Two people were killed on January 21, 1999, when a tornado hit Beebe, Arkansas, a day in which seven EF3 tornadoes were being tracked in separate parts of the state by the National Weather Service at the same time. In all, five people lost their lives. Arkansas recorded the most tornadoes on any individual January day in any state (56), the most tornadoes in the month of January; and the largest single outbreak ever to strike the state.

It was even worse in neighboring Oklahoma, where a total of 46 people were killed in the tornado outbreak a day earlier.

May 2, 2008, the community of Earle was hit by a slow-moving EF2 tornado that caused massive damage in the city, including the total loss of Earle Elementary School. Several homes that were damaged were never rebuilt, resulting in loss of population for the rural community.

April 22, 2014, saw the small Central Arkansas town of Vilonia hit by a tornado on a volatile weekend in which 37 tornadoes were confirmed to have touched down in Arkansas and Mississippi. Four people were killed. On May 25, 2011, a 47-mile-path tornado tore through neighboring Johnson and Franklin counties.

One of the more deadly outbreaks occurred on March 1, 1997, which resulted in twenty-five Arkansas fatalities.

The deadliest outbreak in Arkansas history, however, occurred on March 21, 1952, when 112 people lost their lives.

Bald Knob (White County) and Judsonia (White County) were the hardest hit, suffering over 50 fatalities. Cotton Plant (Woodruff County) also lost 29 in one of 17 tornadoes confirmed that day (with as many as 10 more possible), 12 of which were deadly.

From the Arkansas Encyclopedia of Culture and History:

The new millennium did not bring calmer weather with it.

In the first decade of the 21st century, about 622 tornadoes in Arkansas have accounted for the deaths of 40 people, injured approximately 540, and caused more than $650 million in damage. Notable tornadoes during this period include a historic February 5, 2008, strike in which an EF4 tornado tore a 123-mile-long path through seven counties in north-central Arkansas, killing 12, injuring at least 140, and damaging or destroying 880 homes and 100 businesses. This path set an Arkansas record for length; Clinton

Remnants of a home on the outskirts of Earle razed by a tornado that struck the town in 2008.

File photos

West Memphis residents sift through the rubble left by the powerful tornado that ripped through the city in December of 1987. The disaster would be part of a triple whammy, with a major flood on Christmas Eve less than two weeks later and a massive blizzard just after the first of the year.