A twist of fate : Historical documents show Washington County is prone to tornadoes like anywhere else
Posted on Sunday, May 18, 2008
Seems like Washington County always misses the big storms, right ? That some gravitation force or the shape of the hills prevents tornadoes from reaching the cities ?
But according to a National Weather Service forecaster and a bevy of historical documents, it simply isn't the case. Washington County is just as suspect to the swirling damage of a tornado as anywhere, even more so than some parts of the country, perhaps, because it is part of the region referred to as Tornado Alley, said Craig Sullivan, National Weather Service forecaster.
There were two tornadoes confirmed as early as Jan. 9 in Benton County. Just last weekend, another tornado damaged a pair of schools in Bentonville. This comes just a few years removed from a twister that caused damage in the community of Little Flock.
But, two tornadoes have been confirmed in Washington County in 2008, said Sullivan. Both came in the early morning hours of April 10. The first was a twister near Morrow that traveled toward Lincoln, destroying a mobile home and damaging trees in the process. The second hit the ground about five miles southeast of Fayetteville, also causing tree damage. Both were classified as EF 2 tornadoes on a scale that goes from EF 0 to EF 5 and rates the twisters by the amount of damage they do.
Prior to that, a pair of twisters touched down in April 2004, one near West Fork, the other near Morrow, the latter damaging a chicken house and a mobile home. According to the National Weather Service, just 16 confirmed touchdowns were recorded between January 1950 and February 2002 in Washington County. One death and 57 injuries were recorded as a result of those storms.
But about the notion one would miss the larger cities by the virtue of the hills ?
"There is nothing to that," said Sullivan. "Topography has nothing to do with it."
In fact, historical documents indicate no city in the immediate area is safe from the path of the storms.
A tornado on April 18, 1880, for instance, landed a direct hit on Fayetteville - on the Square, in fact. The cyclone, as it was called in reports at the time, began west of the Square, traveling east. As it reached the Square, it damaged several buildings, including the lodge of the local chapter of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternal organization. The tornado spun down Mountain Street, wiping out much of the southern half of the Square. Part of the roof of downtown merchant Baum & Bros. was found in Goshen, some 12 miles away. In all, 65 homes were destroyed, one person was killed and another 25 were seriously injured.
"Nobody imagined that before midnight the prosperous town around the Square as well as almost every building between the old fair grounds - located just north of present Highway 62 West and Razorback Road - and East Mountain - Mount Sequoyah - would lie in piles of rubble from one of the most devastating tornadoes ever to strike Washington County," the "Souvenir History of Fayetteville, Arkansas 1865-1895 "reports.
Springdale had nearly 100 homes, an apartment complex and a shopping center destroyed when a funnel ripped through that city on June 11, 1970. According to the Northwest Arkansas Times edition published the following day, the same twister touched down in the communities of Lincoln and Elm Springs, leaving one dead and more than 40 more injured. The paper reports the tornado "came from a sky the U. S. Weather Bureau believed clear of funnel clouds"and one woman said "it sounded like 50 or 60 airplanes going over at once."
Many other twisters have passed through the area as well. The Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale has photos of a heavily damaged St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Tontitown, which was struck in June 1934. It wasn't the first time Tontitown suffered a direct hit - one of the town's original settlers was killed by a cyclone in 1898, the same year the city was founded.
The Shiloh Museum also has an image of then-Gov. Bill Clinton surveying homes that were damaged when a tornado landed near West Fork in 1984.
The most common period for tornadoes to occur is in the spring, and the peak of the season is generally mid-May, Sullivan said. Tornado activity usually wanes in early June, he said.
But the storms can come anytime - and anywhere, including the heavily populated areas of Washington County, Ark. It already had one near miss, a weatherman said in a Northwest Arkansas Times article published in 2001. The tornado, which touched down May 3, 1999, marched across eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas on a line toward Fayetteville. But just seven miles away, it retreated into the clouds.
"I'm not to sure the people of Fayetteville took that tornado seriously," said Steve Piltz, meteorologistin-charge at the National Weather Service office in Tulsa. "It was a very real and genuine threat."
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