CARLISLE Just before the sirens sounded in Carlisle, school superintendent Floyd Marshall got the warning from police a tornado was coming right for the town's elementary and high school.
But unlike most other schools in Arkansas, the two Carlisle schools have specially designed interior hallways dubbed tornado-safe rooms where the district's 750 students cowered until the storms passed by Friday.
"It doesn't take but the one time to devastate a community and families and if there's a way to prevent that from occurring, then we need to make an effort to do it," Marshall said. "You may never need it, but that one time that you do that you don't have it, it's something you can't recover from."
The National Weather Service said the Carlisle tornado Friday had a path 2.6 miles long and was rated an E-F1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale from 0 to 5, meaning it had winds of 86-110 mph. It veered away from the shared campus of the elementary and high schools at the last moment, but Gov. Mike Beebe acknowledged the importance of the rooms on a visit to the city Monday.
"School districts are making the conscious decision when they're either renovating or doing new construction to go ahead and spend the money while they're at it," Beebe told reporters. "I'd like to see them everywhere. I'd like to see them as much as possible. But at this juncture, we're not in a position to mandate them everywhere, unless you have the money to be able to give them to everybody."
Julie Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Education, acknowledged that many schools throughout the state do not have the safe rooms. She said officials do not keep an official count of how many schools have them.
Most of Friday's storms, which forecasters now say included 11 confirmed tornadoes, came during the morning, something unusual as the afternoon and evening often offer the best conditions for them to form. The morning storms moved through the state while schools were in session.
State law requires schools to hold tornado drills no less than four times per year during the months of September, October, January and February. However, state laws only suggest building the safe rooms for students.
Now, though, the state Legislature has set aside $456 million for a program to build and repair crumbling schools across the state after a state Supreme Court decision. Beebe said districts in line for the funding likely could use that money, or money set aside in federal government grants, to build the safe rooms.
"It doesn't take a lot of encouragement because most of the school officials have been really conscious and proactive about building either safe rooms or hardened areas of their school buildings," Beebe said.
Friday's storms and tornadoes killed seven people in Arkansas. Beebe and other state officials flew by helicopter to see damage Monday in Carlisle, Earle and Greers Ferry. The governor recounted seeing a pontoon boat wrapped around a tree and other devastation on his trip.
Meteorologists with the National Weather Service in North Little Rock confirmed Monday that damge in Conway, Van Buren and Cleburne counties was inflicted by a single tornado that they classified as an E-F3 with winds between 136 and 165 mph.
The agency says the tornado touched down near Birdtown in Conway County and continued through Van Buren and Cleburne counties, ending northwest of Drasco. The storm's path made several odd jogs, which sometimes indicate the end of one tornado and the beginning of another, but the weather service said interviews with residents confirmed Monday that the path was continuous, stretching for 45 miles.
In addition, a small "satellite tornado" was confirmed just to the southeast of the long- track tornado, in Van Buren County, the agency said. A witness in Van Buren County reported seeing a thin tornado next to a much wider twister, according to the weather service.
The weather service said the smaller tornado touched down west-northwest of Damascus and followed a track 1.1 miles long before merging with the larger twister northwest of Damascus. The smaller tornado was rated as an E-F1, with winds from 86 to 110 mph.
Maj. Gen. Bill Wofford, commander of the Arkansas National Guard, said about 60 guard members remained on duty Monday in tornado-damaged areas. He said the Guard began a slow drawdown Wednesday as police began to take over security.
Meanwhile, officials continue to assess damage throughout the state since an outbreak of severe weather began Feb. 5, said David Maxwell, director of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management. As floodwaters continue to recede in eastern Arkansas and the possibility of more storms loom later in the week, he acknowledged a final tally of the destruction remains elusive.
"The expenses will go on for months and months and months," Maxwell said.
