SEARCY, AR – Local storm victims spent their Thursday cleaning up after Mother Nature.
Thunderstorm winds left destruction along Race Street. An apartment building, a nursing home and a business were all impacted.
“It was here and gone in 10 seconds,” says James Guthrie, who lives at the Race Street Apartments.
The storms that rolled through town around 3 p.m. Wednesday ripped off the building’s roof.
“About 15 minutes after I laid down and it happened just at the pop of a finger, the whole roof was coming off,” Guthrie adds.
The complex appears to be the hardest hit area in White County.
Large pieces of the roof were carried over onto the neighboring pawn shop.
“Well, it sounded basically like a freight train,” says Guthrie.
Around 6 a.m. Thursday, crews dropped off a tarp as cars drove by and their drivers glanced at the damage to Mark Pearrow’s property.
“We’ve got where it tore the roof off. We’ve got water damage in the apartments and obviously the electrical wires were torn off the building. We got to fix all that,” he explains.
Pearrow says the repairs could take months but in the meantime he is taking care of his tenants.
“The folks on this end of the building we are going to relocate to other apartments. All of us are going to get together and get them moved and everything,” Pearrow adds.
But until it was safe enough to go into the apartments, tenants like Guthrie waited in the parking lot, curious as to what he will walk into.
“Wondering how much stuff I lost,” he says.
