Sudden Storm Hits Southwest Bentonville
Roofs Torn Off, Semi-Truck Swept From Road, Fire Chief Says
Last updated Friday, August 4, 2006 10:14 PM CDT in News
By The Morning News
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BENTONVILLE — A quick-strike thunderstorm hit southwest Bentonville about 3:45 p.m. Friday, felling trees and power lines, ripping roofs from buildings and blowing a tractor-trailer off Arkansas 12.
“It blew up and then as quickly as it blew up, it went down,” said Joe Sellers, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tulsa, Okla.
The damage appeared to have been caused by straight-line winds and not a tornado, Fire Chief Dan White said.
Two minor injuries were reported. Material toppled over on a bricklayer, who was taken to a hospital as a precautionary measure. And the driver of a tractor-trailer escaped serious injury when wind blew his truck from the eastbound lane of Arkansas 12 into the westside ditch, with the rig pointing west, Police Chief James Allen said.
Wind ripped the roof from the United Way building at 3311 S.W. I St., said the agency’s spokesman, Brooke Benoit.
About six employees were in the building when noise from whipping wind began, Benoit said. They sought shelter in a storage room until the worst passed. When they emerged minutes later, a large part of the metal roof was missing. They contacted a restoration company in the hope of patching the roof before more rain came through.
“We are right by a tornado siren that didn’t even have time to go off,” Benoit said.
The roof of CEI Engineering, next door, was also damaged, the police chief said. A large tree fell across Southwest “I” Street, where broken phone and power poles were also reported.
An extra police shift was called in to help manage traffic delays caused by loss of power to traffic signals.
“I took an intersection myself for a little while,” Allen said. “Of course, many of our signals are on battery back-up now, which really helps.”
White said he saw the storm as he drove in from the east Friday afternoon.
“It looked like a wall cloud that shot straight down and we started getting reports of damage right after that,” he said.
Most of the damage was along Arkansas 12, and the Brightwood and Wildwood subdivisions were hit hard, White said.
White didn’t have an estimate of the number of homes damaged but said some were unoccupied because they’re under construction. He said he’d counted nearly 20 power poles snapped in two and had seen numerous downed trees.
The damage was isolated to Bentonville and didn’t reach into Benton County, said Marshall Watson, director of the county’s Department of Emergency Management.
Immediate power failures affected lines down South Walton Boulevard into the Polo Park area, according to the city’s electric department.
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