“It’s like a bomb went off”: Baxter County, Ark., communities cleanup after Sunday storms

BAXTER COUNTY, Ark. (KY3) - Multiple towns in Baxter County continue to pick up the pieces of what remains of their communities.

Between the City of Salesville and Briarcliff, the Baxter County Sheriff reports one person died, and multiple others were injured after storms rocked the area on Sunday. In the two towns, many are surveying their properties to see what the storms left behind.

“You hear people say it’s like a bomb went off; well, it’s like two or three bombs went off,” Briarcliff Mayor Keith Lewis explained.

For Briarcliff, the storm destroyed city hall.

“It’s just devastating. Our maintenance shop is torn all to pieces,” the mayor stated.

The mayor said crews have been at the property since yesterday, trying to find different pieces of city property.

“Right now, we’re looking for file cabinets. Keys to some of our equipment,” Lewis said.

Along Lake Norfork near Mountain Home, Ark., a dock must be rebuilt, and several boats must be replaced.

“Kind of sounded like a train like everyone describes,” Brad Nelson said.

Brad Nelson and his family were camping at Panther Bay until they sought shelter at the county courthouse.

When they returned to the campground, they feared the worst.

“We just knew our camper was going to be blown over. It wasn’t. But it did completely blow it off the jacks. Blew it about two feet away from where it was,” Nelson explained.

The Nelsons also had a boat docked at the marina that took a hit from the storm.

“As soon as we saw it, we knew our boat was gone,” Nelson stated.

But found their boat had been spared.

“Our boat was about three or four from being hit,” Nelson explained.

The family had plans to stay through the weekend, but without any electricity or running water and the chance for more severe weather, they decided to head home to northeast Arkansas.

“Power outages kind of sent us home. Especially with storms supposed to happen later on that day and that night, we just didn’t want to chance it and go through all that again,” Nelson added.

When restoring power, crews from local electric cooperatives and companies are working hard.

“Since 5 a.m. yesterday morning, we’ve had all hands on deck, and we’ll continue to have all hands on deck,” North Arkansas Electric Cooperative CEO Mel Coleman said.

Repairs from the storm across the cooperative’s coverage area will likely cost more than six figures.

“I think this will be way more than a million dollars. We’re looking at a three to seven-day outage event with a lot of material here. So far, 150 broken poles. That’s a lot,” Coleman said.

Coleman expects power to be restored to most of the area in 2-5 days.

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