On Mother's Day, May 10, 2015.  We had what started off to be a wonderful day.  Molly was a little bit cruddy, but other than that we had a fun filled normal day.  We stayed home from church because Molly was sick.  We did a little laundry and watched a little TV.  All the normal stuff.

At 10:00pm, the kids were in the bed asleep and Larry went to bed.  I stayed up to watch the radar because there was storms brewing and we were under a tornado watch.  I get a little nervous but not scared enough to wake the kids up.  I did wake up Larry and he assured me nothing was happening because the wind was not even blowing....regardless of the tornado warnings going off. 

At about midnight or a little after is when I learned that trees were down around town.  A little while later I decided to go into to work to see if I could help.  That's when I realized how bad this storm was.  I had no idea that about a mile and a half from our house an EF2 tornado had touched down killing two people in our town. 

These are pictures from the damage.  These aerial photos were taken by the news media that was all over town the following day.

These pictures are of a trailer park on the west side of town.  There were four trailers completely demolished. 

 

Two people lost their lives in these trailers and other were injured severely.  The young couple that was killed were found shielding their 18 month old daughter.  The daughter survived and was fine.

On the east side of town at another trailer park, there were several trailers damaged by trees.  This family was home when the first tree fell on their trailer at the end of it near there bedroom area.  They were all in the living room area and left the trailer.  When they came back after the storm had passed, there were two more trees across the house in the living room and kitchen areas. 

 

Throughout the trailer park there were multiple trailers that looked just like this one.  It looked as it the tree was a knife and it cut straight through them.

 

The next picture is of a house on Sunset Street.  There were several trees on this house.  This is what most of the damage looked like on many houses.

There were many trees down around town.  Some were uprooted.  Some were snapped.  Some were twisted off.

 

 

 

This one is a house on Johnson Street.  You can see the massive damage to trees in that area. 

 

The Church of Christ also had major damage. 

 

These photos were taken by Jonathan Canaday from the radio station.  He takes very good pictures and captured a lot of the devastation. 

 

A lot of the houses behind the old hospital looked just like this one.  There were people trapped in their houses after the storm.

 

This is an idea of what the streets looked like.  When the storm came through you could not even get into the destroyed neighborhoods because of downed trees and power lines. 

 

Jonathan captured this photo at a church on Leslie Street.  Notice that the wall of the building was gone but the tablecloth and flowers on the table were undisturbed.  That kind of stuff blows my mind.   There were so many stories like that.

 

This next photo is of a camper that was parked in a yard that got slammed against the house when the storm came through.  It was demolished.  The camper and the house.  I don't know who the man is in the picture.  But I imagine him laughing to keep from crying, especially if it is his house or camper. 

I am so proud of our little small town.  I love that everyone comes together in times of need.  It wasn't 15 minutes after the storm passed that you could hear chainsaws running and I don't think they have stopped since.  The church set up a drop off place for donations and they had to start turning people away because there was no more room for donations.  The next few days was overwhelming to see the love and compassion shown to everyone.  Tyson and Pilgrim's sat up in the church parking lot and cooked for people displaced, without power, and the volunteers and workers.  They donated several thousand meals during a few days.  Local and neighboring business donated anything from food and water to clean up supplies.  I couldn't even count all of the volunteers that came out to help clean up.  It was amazing. 

The Red Cross was there as well taking care of victims displaced and delivering meals to workers in the neighborhoods.

 

School rivalry ceases in times like these.  There were students from Ashdown, Dierks, DeQueen, and Amity that came by the bus loads to help with the clean up. It literally made me cry when I would start talking about all the volunteers and donations. 

The police department, fire department, city and county road crews, and highway department put in lots and lots of hours even following the storm.  It was also very heartwarming when I realized that every police officer came out during or shortly after the storm without even being called.  These guys don't get enough credit.  When something bad happens they run to it, not away from it.  They walked in these neighborhoods in the rain and lightening, climbing over downed trees and power lines, knocking door to door to make sure everyone was safe.  Then they worked days of traffic control on little sleep afterwards.   

 

 

It will take weeks to get all the streets and yards cleaned up, and the neighborhoods will never look the same.  But as always, it could have been much worse.  We are thankful and appreciative and happy to live in our small town.