Cars line up along the road as cleanup continued April 2, 2023, from tornado damage on March 31, 2023, in west Little Rock, Ark. (Thomas Metthe/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette via AP)
Violent tornadoes struck wide areas of the Deep South, the Midwest and the East on March 31 and April 1, killing at least 32 people, injuring many more, and inflicting hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of property damage.
In all, dozens of confirmed or suspected tornadoes were reported across 11 states by April 2. In all, approximately 28 million people were under tornado watches during the first day of the storm's rampage, including the Little Rock, St. Louis, Chicago and Memphis metropolitan areas.
In the South, destructive storms impacted areas of Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi when several rain-wrapped twisters raced across primarily rural areas in the afternoon and evening of March 31, and into the overnight hours of the next day.
Further to the north and east, the large weather system produced supercells that spawned a range of twisters from weak Enhanced Fujita-scale storms (EF-0) to rolling monster tornadoes, rated as high as EF-4 with winds over 165 mph, each capable of causing tremendous devastation.
Areas affected over the rest of March 31 and that evening included eastern Iowa, southern Wisconsin, northern and central Illinois, and Indiana.
The onslaught of storms kept going after midnight and throughout the day of April 1, with more twisters reported in Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio as the cyclonic storm system marched east. In the South, more storms fired up in Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, with one death reported in Pontotoc County, Miss., and another near Huntsville, Ala.
Severe weather in the mid-Atlantic states usually means lightning, flooding and hail, but tornadoes are rare occurrences. But New Jersey saw at least six twisters the afternoon of April 1, with one each reported in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware.
Even more unusual for a tornado in this part of the United States is a large, killer storm. Unfortunately, an EF-3 twister in southern Delaware cut a 14-mi. path of destruction from Bridgeville to Ellendale in Sussex County, damaging at least two to three dozen homes, and taking the life of one man. His death was only the fourth tornado-related fatality reported in the state since 1843, and the first in 30 years.
In their wake, the spring storms left behind many destroyed homes, farms and businesses.
System's First Tornadoes Spawned in Arkansas
Although Arkansas did not suffer the largest number of casualties, the fact that a monster twister hit the Little Rock metropolitan area meant that it probably suffered the largest amount of property damage in the South because of the storms. More importantly, the storm took the life of one person in North Little Rock.
After forming southwest of Little Rock, the storm transformed itself into a powerful tornado as it traveled northeast and was, at times, 600 yds. wide. It moved quickly through the capital city's west side, crossing both Interstate 40 and the Arkansas River, before entering North Little Rock; it continued for 32 mi. before dissipating. The nearby National Weather Service (NWS) office confirmed that the EF-3 tornado packed winds reaching 165 miles per hour.
Later on March 31, and further east in the small town of Wynne, Ark., 50 mi. west of Memphis, Tenn., another powerful twister used the cover of darkness to flatten much of that community, killing four people in the process.
The NWS in Memphis, which is responsible for eastern Arkansas, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that a preliminary report had determined the tornado that struck Wynne also was an EF-3, but the agency said final determinations of wind speed, the width and length of the tornado track, and total damage estimates will take time.
Survivors in Little Rock Area Survey the Damage
If April 1 was a day to measure the breadth of the damage wrought by Little Rock's tornado on March 31, then April 2 was a day to gauge the depth of the recovery needed.
"We're on day three of many, many days ahead of us," North Little Rock Police Chief Mike Davis told the Democrat Gazette.
The city's mayor, Terry Hartwick, said North Little Rock has hired a Mobile, Ala., company to help in coordinating the cleanup. CrowderGulf Disaster Recovery & Debris Management LLC works with communities needing help following catastrophes.
At a press conference at the heavily damaged Colony West shopping center off North Rodney Parham Road in Little Rock, where the sound of chainsaws and heavy equipment nearly drowned out the speakers, Mayor Frank Scott explained that his town also is working toward recovery.
"We're going to try and get operations back to as smooth as possible," he said in speaking to reporters. "It's going to probably take months for a lot of these residential communities, as well as our commercial activity, to get back to normal. It's our priority to do all we can to rebuild and recover for the residents of Little Rock and central Arkansas."
As the damaging storms moved through the state, electrical service was interrupted to 56,000 Entergy Arkansas customers throughout the state.
"We've had a lot of debris, like roof shingles and trash, [all of which] we have to maneuver around to get to the power lines, and these happen to be in heavily populated neighborhoods where we can't just pull up in a bucket truck," Brandi Hinkle, a spokesperson for the utility, said. "We must use a lot of specialized equipment."
Hinkle told the Democrat-Gazette that crews were working to replace 1,500 damaged power poles, 400 transformers and some 2,000 spans of wire. Once the replacements are complete, however, she said much of the new infrastructure will be better able to withstand severe weather when it occurs.
Twisters Capped Off ‘Worst' Week for Tennessee Governor
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee drove to one county April 1 to tour the destruction and comfort residents. He said the storms, which killed 15 in the state, capped the "worst" week of his time as governor, coming days after a school shooting in Nashville that killed six people, including a family friend whose funeral he and his wife just attended.
"It's terrible what has happened in this community, this county, this state," he told residents and officials in the area. "But it looks like your community has done what Tennessee communities do, and that is rally and respond."
CNN reported that three of Tennessee's deaths were in Memphis: Two children and one adult were found dead after police responded to calls about trees that had fallen on homes, the Memphis Police Department said in a news release.
Nine others perished in McNairy County, about 80 mi. east of Memphis. The storm "crossed our county completely from one side to the other," Sheriff Guy Buck told the TV news network as authorities continued to search collapsed buildings for victims.
The Memphis Commercial Appeal reported that four of the people killed in McNairy County were huddled in one building in the community of Rose Creek.
County Mayor Larry Smith told the newspaper that, in total, 72 homes were destroyed by the storms and about 35 to 40 percent of the county had suffered damage.
The Tennessee Department of Health confirmed that three more people died in Shelby, and one each in Roane, Tipton and Henry counties.
The Memphis NWS also found that EF-3 tornadoes touched down March 31 in Covington and Adamsville, Tenn.
The NWS will continue to survey areas in Middle Tennessee to learn whether tornadoes caused damage in several other counties, including Wayne, Lewis, Marshall, Rutherford, Cannon and Macon.
On the morning of April 1, in northern Alabama, another EF3 twister struck Hazel Green, near Huntsville, taking the life of another victim, before crossing into Tennessee.
New Band of Storms Started Up in Iowa
As the afternoon and evening of March 31 wore on, the march of tornadoes shifted to the north in central and eastern Iowa, where many more twisters began to drop from the sky as they moved eastward.
One of the first storms in this area was a violent and ugly low-end EF-4 tornado, with winds of 170 miles per hour that traveled 43 mi. past Martinsburg and Keota, Iowa, severely damaging or destroying several homes. Thankfully, no one lost their life from this behemoth as it plowed across open farmland.
The storm front skipped across the Mississippi River from Iowa into northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, bringing with it over a dozen EF-2 twisters. After dark, a new round of strong to intense tornadoes were born, leading to an EF-1 tornado that nonetheless slammed into the historic Apollo Theatre in Belvidere, Ill., outside Chicago, during a heavy-metal concert, killing one person and injuring more than two dozen others.
Further south, yet another EF-3 tornado was spawned in east-central Illinois, near the town of Palestine, and killed three people in New Hebron, before the whirlwind crossed the Wabash River into the southern part of Sullivan, Ind., killing another three residents of that town. Multiple homes and structures were severely damaged or destroyed in Sullivan, and two modular homes were thrown hundreds of yards. Trees were damaged, with many sheared 20 to 30 ft. off the ground.
Two more fatalities were reported at McCormick's Creek State Park, west of Bloomington, Ind., when the camper they were in was destroyed. Portions of the park were described as "flattened" by severe winds.
Combined, Iowa, Illinois and Indiana endured more than 60 tornadoes between March 31 and April 1, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
The storms lost much of their power in the eastern states with only five relatively weak funnels confirmed in New Jersey, and one each in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware, although the latter was an EF-3 that resulted in the one death.
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