HOT SPRINGS VILLAGE -- State and local agencies continued assessment and cleanup efforts in Hot Springs Village and nearby areas Friday after an EF2 tornado damaged numerous homes and businesses in and around the gated community Thursday night.
The Arkansas Division of Emergency Management, in a news release Friday afternoon, said the tornado "caused significant damage in the community, uprooting hundreds of trees, snapping utility poles, and damaging numerous homes."
The National Weather Service in North Little Rock released a report at 2:24 p.m. Friday that said the tornado's winds reached 115 mph, which is classified as an EF2 on the Enhanced Fujita scale.
The path of the tornado was reported to be up to 1,000 yards wide and 8.5 miles long, stretching from the intersection of Highway 7 north and Casual Place to the intersection of Danville Road and Road 23100, approximately a half-mile from Old Union Primitive Baptist Church.
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The initial damage, the report said, was near the intersection of Highway 7 north and Casual Place with winds around 115 mph "at the onset of the tornado."
The report said there was "extensive tree damage" consistent with an EF2 tornado and "an impressive number of snapped trunks and uprooted trees" were noted as it moved northeast into Hot Springs Village.
The roof of a building on the bluff near Montanoso Circle "was blown off and thrown approximately 80 yards to the northeast," the report said, noting the storm weakened to an EF1 before the funnel lifted.
Mark Quinton, a member of the Hot Springs Village Board of Directors, said he was home watching "Young Sheldon" when meteorologists on the network interrupted the show to warn viewers of the storm.
"Like every time there's a storm in Arkansas, they interrupted it," he said. "I was complaining because I wanted to watch 'Young Sheldon.' ... My wife opened the back door, and she heard a freight train. So I know what that was. We closed the door, got in the bathroom and hunkered down, and we started hearing trees snapping and hitting the house."
The tornado passed in about 15-20 seconds, Quinton said, but much of the natural beauty of the area was destroyed.
"The landscape, it's nothing like it was when we moved here," he said. "We moved here for the beauty of it, and it's going to take a long time for it to get back to normal. The stuff in the house, the holes in the roof can be fixed and the yards can be picked up. I had a truck that was totaled ... but it's just the landscape."
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Quinton said he is proud to see members of the community step up to help their neighbors during such a trying time.
"What the Village employees have done has just been amazing," he said. "They cleaned the streets off, and I've seen two directors go by today, the POA employee directors. So it's just amazing what they do when the rubber hits the road."
David Cohen, who owns Village Nutrition on Highway 7 north near the Village, said he saw the aftermath of Thursday's storm on a livestream from a camera he has outside the business.
"I was able to see this pole down," he said, referring to a power pole that had snapped and landed on the edge of his business' roof. "I was seeing people walking back and forth. I was seeing wires down, and I didn't know how badly my store was damaged. I didn't know that until this morning when I got here."
While there was no major damage to the building, Cohen said he was trying to contact a local charity to donate the food that would be lost due to no refrigeration.
"There's no damage, fortunately, except for the fact that we have frozen and refrigerated food," he said. "The power has been off since about 8 o'clock last night. I've called the local food bank, and I hope that they come so we can at least donate it."
Hot Springs Village Public Services Director Ken Unger said Friday morning crews were still in a "search and rescue" mindset as they made their way through the Village.
"We're attempting to clear the areas that we know we have downed trees, potentially downed power lines to gain access for the electric companies and also to get to residents so that we can assess each house to house whether or not we have residents that need help," he said.
"We have about well over a dozen crews out right now, probably more than that at this point in the areas that we're aware of the tornado hit down."
Thousands of customers in Hot Springs Village were without power due to the storm.
First Electric Cooperative Corp., which provides power to the Saline County side of the Village, showed on their website around 11 a.m. that 764 customers were without power in the community, but that number had dropped to 478 by 2:30 p.m. Entergy reported 1,492 customers without power at 11 a.m. Friday, which had dropped to 1,174 by 2:30 p.m.
"We have a lot of elderly residents here," Unger said. "They have medical conditions. We're trying to ascertain their status and if their power is going to be a lot longer than maybe their medical apparatus requires. We're trying to move them into a safe environment."
Unger said the damage to the power poles and lines is significant.
"They lost double pole lines in some areas, so they can't just backfeed those areas," he said. "So it's going to be access; it's going to be critical and that's what we're working on with them right now. They told me that 15 tree crews, but they don't have bulldozers and backhoes like we do, so we're coordinating with them to try to hopefully improve that by giving them access to get to the lines."
Garland County Department of Emergency Management Director Bo Robertson said the worst of the damage outside Hot Springs Village was in the 3900 block of Highway 7 north.
Robertson said other storm-damaged areas south of Hot Springs Village included Brookhill Ranch Road. There were also reports of damaged roofs on accessory structures in the Village View Trail area south of the Village.
North of the Village Robertson said heavy rain submerged a bridge on Talley Cemetery Road.
"We did get a lot rainfall," he said.
A transformer that exploded on Ivy Street was the only storm-related damage reported inside the city of Hot Springs, according to reports logged by dispatchers in the city's 911 communications center.
The Hot Springs Fire Department said there were no reports of flooding.
Staff writer David Showers contributed to this article.
A trash bin is impaled by a broken utility pole in the 3900 block of Arkansas Highway 7 north Friday. (The Sentinel-Record/James Leigh)
Vehicles attempt to maneuver along Fresno Road where downed trees block one of the lanes. (The Sentinel-Record/James Leigh)