Super-Cell Tornado Outbreak of 2011

A “super-cell storm” hit Arkansas on April 25, 2011, spawning seven tornadoes, generating widespread flooding, and causing fourteen deaths. Governor Mike Beebe declared “a general state of emergency” as the massive storm system struck Arkansas. A hydrologist with the National Weather Service said that it had “issued warnings for tornadoes, flash flooding, river stages, thunderstorms, everything.”

The most destructive of the seven tornadoes documented in Arkansas on that day was an EF-2 with winds of 111 to 135 miles per hour that landed near Ferndale (Pulaski County) and traveled 51.1 miles before dissipating near Center Hill (White County). It caused widespread damage in Vilonia (Faulkner County), where it hit just after 7:00 p.m., killing five people, including four in the Black Oak Ranch Estates community, which consisted largely of mobile homes. Sixty homes were destroyed, and seventy-seven others were damaged. The Saltillo (Faulkner County) community also sustained heavy damage.

Garland County was hit by three tornadoes on April 25—two EF-2s and an EF-3 with winds blowing 136 to 165 miles per hour that hit north of Fountain Lake (Garland County). Hot Springs Village (Garland and Saline counties) and the Sunshine (Garland County) and Walnut Lake (Garland County) communities both sustained extensive damage. An eight-month-old baby boy died of his injuries in Garland County, and another person there “died as a result of a medical emergency” triggered by the storm.

Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville (Pulaski County) was struck by an EF-2 twister, and 100 homes on the base “sustained severe damage.” Eight C-130 cargo planes and several hangars were damaged, and the disaster delayed a “major deployment of troops and planes to Iraq and Afghanistan.” Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church at Palarm (Faulkner County) was virtually destroyed by the storm.

Two EF-1 tornadoes, with winds between 86 and 110 miles per hour, were documented as traveling between Lonoke and White counties and in Perry County. The extensive flooding that occurred throughout Arkansas killed five people in Washington, Madison, and Benton counties.

A total of fourteen people in Arkansas died in the super-cell storm of April 25, 2011. Governor Beebe declared fifty-seven of Arkansas’s seventy-five counties as state disaster areas.

Vilonia would again be hit by a tornado three years later, on April 27, 2014, killing eight people.

For additional information:
Hale-Shelton, Debra. “Vilonia Reels from Storm.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 27, 2011, p. 5A.

Heard, Kenneth. “River Floods 100 Homes; State’s Death Toll at 14.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 30, 2011, pp. 1A, 4A.

Lauer, Claudia. “Baby Hurt in Tornado Succumbs to Injuries.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 29, 2011, p. 6A.

Oman, Noel E. “57 Counties Now Disaster Areas.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, May 1, 2011, pp. 1A, 13A.

Upshaw, Amy, Amy Schlessing, and Kenneth Heard. “Storms Maul State, Kill 5.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 26, 2011, pp. 1A, 6A.

Upshaw, Amy, Kenneth Heard, and Chad Day. “Storms Return, Take Fewer Hits.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 27, 2011, pp. 1A, 4A.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas