By Dr. Curtis Varnell
Over the years, the Arkansas River Valley has had its share of natural and human accidents but the worst of the worst always revolves around the tornado season. Primetime for their occurrences is during the early evening hours of April and May. Dark clouds roll in from the west, lightning flashes across the sky and thunder rolls off the hillsides. Soon the wind begins to pick up and the sirens began to go off.
Nearly every family can recount near-fatal accidents and horrifying stories about the damage inflicted when nature goes on a rampage through their community. Seemingly, anywhere in tornado alley, of which Arkansas is a part, can and has been hit.
The worst tornado that I recall occurred in Greenwood on April 19, 1968. The tornado hit in the blink of an eye and lasted only a total of four minutes. During that time, it cut a path 300 yards wide and 2 miles long. Most of the center of Greenwood was reduced to matchsticks and kindling and the tornado left a sea of rubble in its path. A total of 14 people were killed and over 270 were injured. Most of the city experienced some damage with 400 homes and 60 businesses suffering extensive damage. Bulldozers swept the damage into abandoned mine pits and the city slowly rebuilt.
My son was in Fort Smith in April of 1996 when the tornado hit the downtown area and swept through an area running from the riverfront into residential Van Buren, killing two people and injuring dozens. Terrified, he called me in the middle of a storm that was over before he could explain what was happening but the clean-up took months.
As a child, I hated going to the cellar but the community in which I lived was very aware of the danger the tornado could bring. John Chandler would see ground clutter on the TV and begin warning us of what would happen and dad would pack us in the car and head to my Uncle Robert’s cellar. Denva and Sonya would be wrapped in blankets, crying from being awakened in the middle of the night. Into the cellar we would go, scrunched into wooden benches along the muddy, red-clay wall. Fumes from the flickering kerosene lamp joined with the smell of rotting potatoes, vegetables, and stale water. The cellar floor was earthen and covered by six inches of dirty, stinking water and my bare feet would sink into the red mud, crowding mushy mud between my toes.
The men stood just outside the door, watching the approaching storm and discussing past disasters. I always thought they enjoyed taking a break from their normal hard labor, visiting with friends and family, and waiting for the minor rainstorm to hit before taking us back home for the night. That is, until the real thing hit us and, unfortunately, we did not get enough warning to get to the cellar.
My brother Roger and I slept in the back room of the house; a part that had originally been a back porch. I heard my dad as he yelled for us to get up and get to the front of the house. By then, it was too late. Wind shook the house and, glancing up I saw our ceiling disappear into a sky already crowded with our well house, several chickens, and other debris. Running to the front of our house, I was able to see the wind deposit the well house back into the front yard but the chickens disappeared into the circling mall of the funnel. Over before we realized, the tornado had lifted as it got to our home and just removed the ceiling from our bedroom but it left a wake of destruction across the pasture behind us. It later touched down in Scranton, destroying several homes and chicken houses before disappearing to wherever it came from.
Little injured but badly shaken, ever afterward my parents heard little protest from me as I sat in the dark, stinking cellar washing my feet in the residual soup left from last year’s vegetable harvest.
