Saturday, July 12, 2008

Dumas Tornado

In February 07 I drove my dad back to Dumas Arkansas after he spent a couple months with us. About two weeks later the town was devistated by a tornado. While some homes were destroyed, the majority of the impact was on the commercial business area. These photos were taken by my Dad and I will do my best to describe what these were before the tornado but honestly, it's sorta hard to tell.
This was a nursey/garden center. Nicely merchandised interior with garden accessories and then a greenhosue area - of course the shadecloth green house is gone but I see that most of the plants are gone as well.

This was a gas station. The same gas station associated with a murder the year before but that is another story.......

This was a Sonic Drive-in. The way they are designed I am not surprized that it collapsed with that metal open-roof area - tornado bait.

I believe this was the steak house called Butch's. If was a good restaurant and made of metal, wood, and stone. Looks like it was made of match sticks in this photo. I remember they had really good photos of President Clintonon the walls from some BBQ contest they entered.

I am thinking this is the civis center but can't be sure with so much debris. If so, at one time it housed Hurricane Katrina victims.

This is a factory where I believe they made dog food. Look closely at this photo to get the impact of the destruciton - that coiled metal is NOT a rollar coaster although it looks like one.

Another shot on the highway where many of the businesses were. Lots of metal buildings in that area. I believe what you see in background used to be the Wal-Mart. They had closed up prior to the tornado and left an empty building.

Pretty sure this WAS the Mad Butcher grocery store which was rebuilt this year and now open again.
Not sure about this one - it seems to be residental by the grass and no road/highway. The tornado destroyed the town because it destroyed so many businesses and services but luckily it did not take a human toll.





1 comment:

Julie said...

Isn't that amazing that no one died considering all that destruction! Great photos, but very sad too. I had an interesting reaction to a video of a hurricane while we were at MOSI in Tampa. I started getting tears and had to leave the room...I did NOT want to watch a hurricane!!! My kinda quick reaction surprised me...I had not realized it would affect me that way.