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March 5, 2008
Super (Cell) Tuesday
Like many editorial cartoonists, Roger Harvell had a busy day on February 5 -- Super Tuesday -- but unlike most of his colleagues, who were following the presidential primaries, Harvell was digging out after an F4 tornado passed over his home. The tornado was one of dozens to touch down that day as a massive storm system moved from Texas to Ohio, and left 52 people dead.
While most of the trees and barn on his property were destroyed by the twister, Harvell's house suffered only moderate damage and, more importantly, no one was injured.
Harvell, who draws for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, wrote about riding out the storm in last week's Batesville Guard.
From the 'fraidy hole'
The tornado hit our place at about 6:15 on Feb. 5. If you go to the Batesville Guard online at this address: http://guardonline.com/?q=node/43720 you will see a picture of what it looked like.
This picture was taken from Eudell Smith's place looking west down the east fork of the Rocky Bayou.
Judging from the picture the funnel had just passed over us at this point in time.
We had been out on the porch watching the cloud since about 6 when my brother, Kenneth, called to give us a heads up. There is a ridge just across the creek from the house, and I couldn't see the tornado, but heard it coming.
We got into the old cellar about two minutes before it hit. The old cellar had no door on the top side, but an old wooden door at the bottom of the steps that had only one hinge on it. Dry rot over the years had about a 2-foot square missing on the bottom hinge side of the door. I braced the door with a shovel handle and Karan and I put our body weight against it.
It REALLY does sound like a freight train!
I was watching through the crack in the top of the door and it got pitch black. Sand and grit was hitting my face but it was spell-binding to watch. I had a rick of wood stacked by the side of the house and the storm started throwing that down the cellar a piece at a time. I could feel it hit the outside of the door and one came through the hole at the bottom of the door.
We had out two house cats and out dog in the cellar with us. My son, Eric, was setting there in the dark and said, "This is one reason I didn't want to move to Arkansas."
We could see from the cellar that one of the big black walnuts that Papaw had set out when I was a kid had the top out of it. After the funnel passed over I looked out thinking that the house might well be gone, but we were VERY lucky.
The cap rock of the fireplace and a window in the living room were blown out. We were missing shingles down the roof valley on the east side of the house. The meter box was jerked off the north side of the house. Both mine and the neighbor's old barns were blown flat and sheet iron was scattered up and down the creek. A big part of the black walnut that we could see from the cellar was laying on top of it. A large box elder next to Karan's van was uprooted and part of the root wad was under the van. My truck parked under the walnut was untouched as was the van. Those trees were on the south side of the house and they blew over in a westerly direction. The large willow tree that stood on the north side of the house was also uprooted. This tree had splinters stuck into the bark from red cedar (there is not a cedar tree very near that location.)
Another of Papaw's big black walnuts that stood by the front gate was blown over the road in fron of the house. The rootwad from this tree had about 15 feet of my sidewalk lifted up at about a 45 degree angle on one side. The big mulberry tree on the other side of the walk had its top lying in the road also...
My neighbor, Glenda Preston, on the ridge across the creek from the Walker Hole; she saw the storm coming and tried to leave in her truck. She got to the front of my house and a tree blew down in front of her - busting her windshield. She started backing up and my black walnut at the front gate fell behind her, striking her tailgate. That poor woman rode out the tornado in her truck in front of my house!
She borrowed my flashlight and went back home to find that the roof was mostly blown off her house. Their barns and shop were gone as was the old Gilbert house at what used to be Adler.
Her brother's 16-foot river boat was in the top of trees a quarter mile away.
Family and friends could not have been better. I had no more that got back in the house when Eudell Smith called to check on us (we lost power, but never did lose the phone land line.) After the winds had passed, I started up the road in the pouring rain to the neighbors to check on them. There were trees down every few feet and it took me probably 10 minutes to go about a 150 yards. I kept thinking all the way up there that I was going to find dead people there. But, when I got there, they were OK as well.
By about 8 or so, neighbors and family started arriving. The first one we saw was Chris Williams, Eudel Smith's great-nephew (Chris was the one who took the picture of the tornado that appeared in the Batesville Guard.)
Wilson Teague, a licensed electrican, came down on Thursday morning and together we did the repairs on the meter box. After we were done, I asked Wilson what I owed him and he said, "The sum total of not one damned thing."
[To see before and after photos of Harvell's house, click here.]