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I was visiting my friend who is the fire chief in Bentonville, Arkansas (home of Wal-Mart's world HQ) and when the storm hit, he and I went out to spot tornadic activity and warn the community. We weren't disappointed. We watched as the main storm passed directly over the city, then at the trailing edge, right where you find it, a wall cloud dropped out of the storm and several funnel clouds spun out of it. One touched down and tore the roof off of a school not far away but injured no one. One snaked around almost directly overhead and threatened to drop down and pick us up like Dorothy and Toto. We would have made a run for it, but there really wasn't anywhere to run to. It was eerie, like seeing a bomber over us with the bomb bay doors open. There were also several microbursts that snapped some trees off, but again no one got hurt.
Later we heard that as many a 18 people were killed by the same front in extreme SW Missouri and Eastern Oklahoma, not 20 miles from where we stood. I told my friend that we really dodged a bullet this time. Driving back today my wife and I avoided the area hardest hit but we saw several blasted buildings southwest of Springfield, MO. |
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