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Late in the afternoon of January 3, 1949, a killer tornado tore the heart out of South and Southwest Warren.
Early last Friday evening, another one came along and did the same thing.
In 1949, it came just before six; on Good Friday, it came at 7:55.
"Oh yes, it was exactly the same", said Mrs. Fred M. Holt, wife of the emeritus chairman of the First National Bank. "The sound, the roaring...it was all the same."
And Roy Caplinger, here for both tornadoes, agrees. "The thing was flashing right up there at the treetops" Caplinger said. "Lightning'?', Caplinger continued. "It was the brightest you ever saw. And it was roaring".
Mayor John Frazer, 36, remembers being aged ten and riding his bike through the 1949 disaster area. That one took 57 lives and caused widespread property damage, but the Mayor and Caplinger agreed that the Friday night damage was comparable to the 1949 disaster. "It seems about the same", said Caplinger, retired Potlatch employee.
But there were differences: the one Friday night touched down with amazing ferocity in the Farmville community, southwest of town, snuffing out three lives. Then it moved on west of the path of the '49 twister, ripping into the black peoples' homes on West End. But soon it was back on the old track, roaring along South Martin, into the Potlatch plant. It moved perhaps 50 to 100 yards north of the 1949 wind, doing major damage on the south side of Wheeler, on across the Fullerton homes (Mrs. S. B., Sara, the late Bob Fullertons) on to Myrtle, Powers, and then up and away.
Ironically, its last damage appeared to be on the new Bradley County Memorial Hospital addition.
But the whole of east Warren was covered with corrugated metal from destroyed Potlatch sheds...and pink and green stryofoam egg cartons from the ravaged Sligh Egg Company on South Martin.
Police were hard - pressed on a sunny Easter Sunday afternoon to control carloads of the curious. Finally officers made residents of south Warren go and get passes to get their cars past checkpoints.
Sunday afternoon, Mayor Frazer decreed an 11-5 curfew for Sunday night and Monday morning for all areas south of Central Street.
Governor David Pryor, who has never failed to "carry" Bradley County in an election, came in from Little Rock at noon Saturday and, after an inspection tour with Mayor Frazer and a steak lunch with national guardsmen in a decrepit wooden building on South Martin, appealed to President Ford for help.
Pryor said he thought this was a major disaster area. "No comparison", he said about a recent Little Rock tornado. "I guess the one up there never really touched down good. This Warren one did", he said, shaking his head.
Seven people died in the tornado; over 60 were hurt enough to require treatment.
The dead: Ellis Clanton, Mrs. Faye McKinstry, John Frey, Miss Marilyn Robertson, Mrs. Vertie Stoddard, and Mrs. Genteval Morgan. Miss Robertson was Boyd's aunt; Mrs. Stoddard their companion. All died in the Farmville area; the other four in Warren. Clanton, at Potlatch, where he was working; Mrs. McKinstry and Frey at their homes in Warren's southwest section. Mrs. Morgan, hurt in the west end area, died the next day.
Mayor Frazer said he thought from a thousand to 1,500 people had problems with storm damage.
Richard V. Warner, vice president of the southern division, Potlatch Corporation, told The Eagle Democrat at midnight Friday that "it got everything at Bradley but our sawmill". The sawmill, a showplace installation built several years ago, was south of the storm's path. But it takes steam to operate the sophisticated mill...and the storm "took out" the Potlatch power house.
It wasn't long after daybreak Saturday, and maybe before, when families started loading whatever they could salvage into pickup trucks and station wagons. Chief Tommy Dunaway, up all night (so were Mayor Frazer and his assistant, Marvin Parnell, Representative Johnny Lipton, and plenty of others) went to Dave's café on East Cypress at 4:30 a. m., Saturday and asked people eating breakfast there to organize search squads. They combed the area for damage and injury reports. The results: 151 homes totally destroyed, 238 damaged. The cost, over ten million dollars...probably much more than that.
Governor Pryor, accompanied by his son and other officials, including P. W. Whiteaker, principal assistant to Senator McClellan, toured the area. The Governor said: "Terrible, terrible. I have never seen anything like it".
Senator Dale Bumpers and United States Representative Ray Thornton of Sheridan Monday viewed the devastation from Friday's tornado here as residents continued to clean up the debris.
Sounds of power saws filled the town as workmen cleared trees and other debris from the streets.
County Judge James Earnest said surrounding counties had sent in equipment to help with the cleanup operations.
Among the workers were 30 inmates from Cummins Prison Farm, who will work during the day and then be returned at night to the prison, Tim Baltz, a state Correction Department, spokesman, said.
Sam Henry, director of the Red Cross, disaster relief at Warren, said that case workers so far had assisted 120 families who registered for help.
Temporary shelters that were opened for the homeless have been closed as places were found with relatives, friends and neighbors, but the Red Cross is continuing to serve meals. Two mobile food vans are on duty here.
By Monday afternoon, the Red Cross had served more than 2,000 meals to victims and volunteer workers.
Three antipoverty agencies in South Arkansas are collecting canned food for the victims of Friday's tornado, Tom Lockard, director of the Southwest Arkansas Development Council at Texarkana, announced Monday.
Lockard, who also is president of the Arkansas Community Action Agency Association, the organization that represents the 19 antipoverty agencies in the state, said a team of housing and economic development specialists from the local agencies and the state Office of Economic Opportunity would be assigned to Warren.
*taken from The Eagle Democrat, Wednesday, April 2, 1975, front page
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