Tornado survivors recount flying debris, destroyed buildings

WYNNE, Ark. (AP) — With tornadoes hitting the Midwest and the South this weekend, some survivors said they emerged from their homes to find buildings ripped apart, vehicles tossed around like toys, shattered glass and felled trees.

J.W. Spencer, 88, had never experienced a tornado before, but when he and his wife saw on TV that a tornado was nearing their small town of Wynne, Arkansas, he opened a front window and rear door in his house to relieve air pressure. The couple scurried into the bathroom, where they got into the bathtub and covered themselves with quilts and blankets for protection.

Fifteen minutes later, the storm unleashed its fury. Debris came whistling through the house.

“We just rode it out,” Spencer said on Saturday. “We heard stuff falling, loud noises. And then it quit. It got quiet.”

After it passed, the couple emerged to see their neighborhood devastated by the tornado. Many large trees were down. Houses were severely damaged. The high school’s roof was shredded and the windows were blown out. But Spencer and his wife were not injured. The giant trees on their property lay sideways on the lawn and the house had some minor damage.

“We come through it real good, as far as the physical part,” Spencer said.

Near a theater in Belvidere, Illinois, where a tornado killed one man and injured 40 concertgoers, Ross Potter picked up glass shards Friday in front of his building. The last time the town was devastated to this extent from a tornado was in 1967.

Ambulances whirred by after the theater was hit.

“They took, I can’t even remember how many people,” Potter said. He was lucky — only a few of his building’s windows were broken, mostly on the second floor. Across the street, most of the brick siding on a storefront was ripped away.

Back in Wynne in northeastern Arkansas, Alan Purser stopped in his pickup truck to chat with Spencer. Purser described how he rode out the tornado with his cats in his home, which is being remodeled. He took a risk, sheltering in the sun room which is covered by glass, but it was one of the few rooms not being remodeled.

“I just lay down with my cats, and lay a blanket over me, and let it rumble,” he said of the tornado that flipped over the camper van parked outside.

In Little Rock, Arkansas, nine firefighters were in Fire Station No. 9, located in one of the most devastated areas in the city, when the tornado hit. They sheltered in the chief’s office as the tornado damaged their building.

“If I said it wasn’t scary, I’d be lying,” Capt. Ben Hammond said Saturday.

Once the tornado passed, the firefighters began working to help injured residents and to clear debris blocking their equipment.

“Once you address all the people you can see, then you’ve got to start looking for the people you can’t see,” he said.

The fire station has served as a shelter for neighbors amid fears that another storm was coming. ___

Associated Press reporters Harm Venhuizen in Belvidere, Illinois, and Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas, contributed to this story. Selsky reported from Salem, Oregon.