The Springdale Tornado

This is the last day of blogging before the Blogging from A to Z Challenge begins.  A month of blogging the alphabet, from A to Z, with Sundays off, will be occupying my mind.

Today, though, my mind dwells in the city of Springdale, Arkansas, in the wake of a tornado that hit the city on Wednesday just after four a.m.

Springdale has changed a lot in the years since I lived there, early in the 1980's, for a year.

Back then, Springdale had a population of around 23,500.  As of 2019, the population is a bit over 89,000. The growth of Wal-Mart fueled an explosion of population in Northwest Arkansas, including the counties (yes, counties) that Springdale is located in.

Springdale is located within two counties.  The southern part of the city is in Washington County, and that Springdale allowed retail alcohol sales when we lived there.  The northern part of the city was in Benton County, which was dry (no retail alcohol sales) although the county had a reputation of being the "wettest dry county in Arkansas". 

In 2013, we returned to Arkansas for the first time since the mid-1980's and found Northwest Arkansas had changed, sometimes dramatically, in the 30 some years since we left.  One change was the fact that Benton County was no longer dry (as of 2012).  Beer and wine were sold in supermarkets, and the Benton County part of Springdale had a liquor store.

A Springdale liquor store - photo September of 2013

One thing that hasn't changed from the 1980's is the scariness of a tornado that strikes at night.  Spouse and I  experienced one.  Hearing, yesterday, about the tornado brought back memories.

Imagine, waking up in the middle of the night, tornado sirens wailing.  We had lived in tornado country (Kansas) before moving to Arkansas, so we knew just what to do.  The thing about the middle of the night, though, is that it is dark.  You can't see what is happening around you.  You don't know if there is a funnel bearing down on your house as you hear the winds, hail, and the pounding rain.  

Where we lived did not have a basement.  We ran to the bathroom, with blankets, and got into the bathtub, pulling blankets over us. "Anxious" didn't begin to describe how we felt.

The storm passed and we were untouched.

What we found out that morning (as we recall) is that a small tornado had passed over another part of Springdale, but hadn't touched down where we lived.  I don't remember how far away it was.  We did see some of the damage.

The citizens of Springdale, Wednesday, weren't as fortunate, with their EF-2 (UPDATE:  now it's considered EF-3) tornado.  No deaths were reported, but a school was damaged and its gym was destroyed.  If the tornado had been several hours later....

People don't think of Arkansas as being in a tornado belt, but it is.  And, with weather being what it is, tornadoes may be coming to a place near you, even if you aren't in an official tornado belt.

Today, a weather system will give us here in the Southern Tier of New York warm, but windy, weather, and the possibility of storms.

I hope you will join me for Blogging from A to Z, starting tomorrow, when I explore several areas of our country through photos.