Tornado destroys Osceola home/claims lives in nearby cities

By STEVE KNOX

Times Staff

A cluster of deadly tornadoes, known to be Category EF3 storms, tore through Poinsett County, Eastern Craighead County and Mississippi County Friday night into Saturday morning claiming two lives, causing serious damage and knocking power out to thousands of Arkansans.

The storms, which packed winds of between 111-129 miles per hour, first hit the town of Monette around 8:15 p.m., causing heavy damage to Monette Manor Nursing Home. One resident of the Manor was killed in the storm and five were injured. Twenty residents were trapped in the facility until being rescued by emergency workers. The high winds also destroyed or damaged numerous homes in the city and trapped more residents in their homes.

The storm then hit the city of Leachville, where it flattened one business causing an additional fatality. Killed in Leachville was Osceola native June Pennington, 52, of Manila. Pennington was an assistant manager at the Dollar General store which was destroyed by the storm.

A number of homes in the city also received damage. That same storm crossed the river into Northwest Tennessee, before tearing into the city of Mayfield, Kentucky. That city received serious damage as did several surrounding towns. The death toll in Kentucky had climbed to 74 as of Tuesday afternoon.

The tornado which hit Monette is reported to have traveled more than 250 miles on the ground, making it one of the longest continuous treks in United States history.

A second tornado narrowly missed Keiser, crossed Interstate 55 and continued Northeast of Osceola. That tornado destroyed the home of Kevin Cash just west of Interstate 55 and then caused serious damage to a farm shop belonging to Robinson Farms. That storm knocked out power to a number of homes in the city.

Interim Osceola Chief of Police Jerry Hamilton said that officers assisted with the recovery of items from the Cash home which was destroyed; and, along with the Osceola Fire Department, helped free a resident who was temporarily trapped in their home when a tree fell on the house at North Franklin and Hale.

Osceola Power and Light supervisor Phillip Adcock reported there were a few problems and outages in the city due to the storm. “Three large trees fell across lines causing two poles to break which took out three transformers,” said Adcock. “Winds wrapped a trailer around a pole out by DENSO, taking out a Phase of electricity along West Semmes and the subdivision surrounding Florida Park. A total of five poles were broken in the storm, some in hard to reach places.” Adcock said all Osceola Power and Light customers affected were back on by 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

The storms also caused the suspension of play of the high school boys basketball game between Osceola and Rivercrest Friday evening. School and game officials stopped the game with 5:36 to play in the third quarter in the interest of spectator and player safety. “I consulted with Osceola Athletics Director Russell Leggett and officers about the worsening weather,” said Rivercrest Athletics Director Johnny Fleming. “I told Russell, Wilson (Osceola Coach Vernon Wilson) and Coach (Hunter) Robinson I was going to stop it.”

The Poinsett County town of Trumann was also hard hit by the storms heavily damaging many homes and businesses in the city.

Leachville Mayor Rodney Robertson said he knew areas of the town had been hit hard but did not know the extent of the property damage until daylight. Power was knocked out throughout the town.

“It looked like a bomb had gone off north of town,” Mayor Robertson said.

Property damage north of town left major damage to Adams Gin, Dollar General, and Bigg Butts BBQ. Leachville Main Street buildings north of city hall received damage along with several residences.

A shelter was set up in city hall where seven people spent the night Friday.

Mississippi County Judge John Alan Nelson met with Robertson and will be sending equipment and a support crew from the county to help with the clean-up.

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson toured the devastation in Trumann and Leachville by helicopter but returned to Monette and toured Monette Manor Saturday. The governor had declared a state of emergency earlier that morning.

While in Monette, the governor said of the two-person death toll, “Those are our preliminary numbers; it’s still early.” “Whenever you look at 67 residents here at this facility, I want to express appreciation to the emergency responders, to those volunteers that came and the management that quickly took action to get the residents to other facilities and obviously multiple numbers of those that went to the hospital as well — some in critical condition.”

He noted a number of communities have been impacted by the outbreak of tornadoes on Friday night.

“Probably the most remarkable thing is that there was not a greater loss of life,” Hutchinson said.