Year of the tornado

Super Tuesday storm
Brian Williams: It is the closest thing we have to a national primary. This is Super Tuesday.

But the news of a storm tearing up the South was hard to ignore.

Meteorologist Bill Karins was in for a long day.

Bill Karins: We knew we were gonna have the big tornadoes on the ground. It was just a matter if they hit populated areas. And of course, they did.

There aren't supposed to be tornadoes in February. But don't tell that to the people in tiny Atkins, Arkansas, about 60 miles Northwest of Little Rock. It was about 5 p.m.

KARK weatherman: If you live in Atkins and you can hear our voice right now, you just need to get down into your basement

The tornado was an EF-4, packing winds of just under 200 miles per hour -- fast enough to make a car fly. KARK's meteorologist Jason Kada.

Jason Kada: Quite frankly, I have never seen anything like it.

KARK's Courtney Collins also reported from Atkins that night.

Courtney Collins: Some of the homes were exposed from the outside. I mean, I could, literally, look right into someone's kitchen and read a cookbook title on the shelf.

The tornado killed four in Atkins. It was now about 5:30, and the storm was moving northeast towards the town of Clinton, about 40 miles away.

Jennifer, 7, and Logan Scott, 9, were playing outside when Logan saw the sky change color.

Logan Scott: Instead of looking blue it was looking green.

Their mom, Tanya, had just gotten home.

Tanya Scott: The sky was really dark and it was actually kind of still...

Logan Scott: And then all the power went out.

Jennifer Scott: So we had to run straight to the bathroom.

Then it hit.

Tanya Scott: Lighting struck outside the bathroom window and I could see the trees shooting past like salad, like they were coming out of a salad shooter. And they were big trees.

Logan Scott: You could hear screaming. From other houses.

The tornado trashed the Scott's neighborhood, and then seconds later demolished a boat factory.

One worker was killed.

Worker: Saw it coming across the hill... and ran to the office and got down and stuff started going everywhere.

Just a quarter mile from the boat factory is the home of Joe Benadetti, the owner and chef of a local Bar-B-Que restaurant.

It was his evening off, and he was inside his mobile home listening to the warnings. Then, in the waning light, he saw the tornado start to come over the hill.

Joe Benedetti: Looked like it was probably three miles wide at the top and the bottom you could-- I couldn't even see...

Benadetti knew he couldn't stay inside his mobile home, so he and his dog ran down to the pond, where he wrapped his body around a large tree.

Joe Benadetti: And it was all right till the tree started to come straight up out of the ground about 18, 24 inches. And about that time the storm was over and the tree just kind of laid over.

But the storm wasn't quite through with Benadetti. As he stood up, something hit him on the back of his head.

Joe Benadetti: And I looked down and it was a buzzard sitting on the ground. And it had a broken leg and a broken wing. And he was looking up at me. And I was looking down at him. And I think I cheated him out of his last meal.

It was now about 5:45. The tornado had killed three in Clinton, and was still heading Northeast like a car on a freeway.

Bill Karins: These storms and these tornadoes were movin' at 50 to 60 miles per hour. So, imagine a tornado goin' down the highway and almost passing you.

And just over the ridge was little Mountain View, Arkansas.

KARK reporter Pete Thompson.

Pete Thompson: This thing went over mountains. You know, it went over foothills. It went in between valleys, crushed homes, and it never left the ground for 120 miles.

And that line led right, straight up to the hospital.

That hospital is the Stone County Medical Center.

Nurses and staff heard the warnings, and moved their patients out into the hallway, away from the windows.

Nursing director Diana Sheldon.

Diana Sheldon: I felt something different in my ear, like some pressure, and I thought, "I have never felt that before, this is different, this cannot be good."

KARK Doppler weatherman: And right there that could be a potential debris cloud...

Right under that cloud was the Stone County Regional Medical Center.

Diana Sheldon: And that glass just exploded and dirt and debris and that glass came up the hall.

Incredibly, no one was seriously hurt in the hospital. The emergency department was trashed, and doctors had to suture tornado injuries by flashlight.

The entire town of Mountainview would be without electrical power for six days.

It was now dark, almost 6 p.m. The storm turned east, and set tornadoes down on Memphis and Jackson, Tenn. That night, the storm would kill 57 people and injure hundreds in four states. It was the deadliest tornado outbreak in more than 20 years -- and it would be the deadliest early season tornado in almost 60 years.

What is really unusual about yesterday's Super Tuesday Outbreak is that it occurred in early February. Only one other tornado outbreak in the past century killed so many people so early in the year --the great Jan. 3, 1949, twister, which killed 60 people.

Back in Clinton, Joe Benadetti is still reeling from the storm.

Joe Benadetti: Three people in this area lost their lives that day. And a whole lot of my neighbors lost everything they had.

One of the boats from that factory a half-mile away flew into Tanya Scott's house.

Tanya Scott: We went to the boat factory, though, and we said, "Hey, we got your boat. You want it?" And they're, like, "no, that's OK." (Laughter)

She's rebuilt her house. She also built a storm shelter.

For all she lost, the tornado brought her a new appreciation for what she still has.

Tanya Scott: The time that I have on this earth... And how I use it. I can't think of a better way than to be with them every chance that I can.

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