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South braces for more storms
AP
Photo
People walk on a road in Vilonia, Ark., Tuesday, April 26, 2011, after a tornado hit the area late Monday. The storm system killed at least seven people, including three who drowned in floods in northwest Arkansas.
Associated Press
VILONIA, Ark.
A day after a series of powerful storms in Arkansas killed 10 people in flooding and a tornado that twisted a tractor-trailer like a wrung dish rag, residents in several states braced Tuesday for a second-straight night of violent weather as forecasters again called for twisters to hammer the region.
The National Weather Service issued a high-risk warning for severe weather in a stretch extending from northeast of Memphis to just northeast of Dallas and covering a large swath of Arkansas. It last issued such a warning April 16, when dozens of tornadoes hit North Carolina and killed 21 people. Fourteen tornado warnings had been issued in Arkansas by 6 p.m. Tuesday, although there was no confirmation that any funnel clouds touched the ground.
A possible tornado touched down in the East Texas town of Edom on Tuesday evening, injuring at least one resident when her mobile home was destroyed, Edom Fire Chief Eddie Wood said.
The latest round of storms began as communities in much of the region struggled with flooding and damage from earlier twisters. In Arkansas, a tornado smashed Vilonia, just north of Little Rock, on Monday night, ripping the roof off the grocery store, flattening homes and tossing vehicles into the air.
An early warning may have saved Lisa Watson’s life in that case. She packed up her three children and was speeding away from the Black Oak Ranch subdivision in Vilonia when she looked to her left and saw the twister approach. Two of her neighbors died in their mobile homes, and a visiting couple who took shelter in a metal shipping container where the husband stored tools died when the container was blown at least 150 feet into a creek.
Faulkner County Judge Preston Scroggin said the tornado tore through an area 3 miles wide and 15 miles long, and he thought more people might have died if the residents hadn’t been receiving warnings about a possible outbreak of tornadoes since the weekend and the local weather office hadn’t issued a warning almost 45 minutes before the twister hit Vilonia.