HSVPOA Board Director Mark Quinton & wife,
Tammy had a destructive visitor.
Hot Springs Village POA Board Director Mark Quinton, tired because he worked all weekend, graciously provided an hour over coffee at Melinda’s Cafe and Coffee, to share his and his wife Tammy’s experience with the March 14, F2 Tornado. He was worn out because he had been working hard in his yard to clean up the tornado’s aftermath. “This is stuff I don’t do as much anymore,” he said.
He said things were pretty well cleaned up, and while things look somewhat like they did before the storm, “once you step off of our property, it is a different story with piles of ten-foot-long logs. The question that needs to be answered is when those will be gone and how. I don’t think we know that answer yet.”
He said he was unplugged (no electricity) for five days. “I am trying to work with the insurance companies, create lists of losses, and find out what to do with my totaled truck. Everything has to be documented, from a lawn chair to a grill.”
Mark said he would probably buy his truck back from the insurance company because it is a 2014 truck with only 30,000 miles, and it served his purposes. “You can’t buy a new truck for under $50 or $60 thousand.” He is currently driving a rental.
NOAA weather radio
“When we moved here six years ago, we had a NOAA weather radio. We were tuned in because now we lived in an area with tornados.” Coming from Louisiana, they were used to hurricanes.
“We used the NOAA radio to keep track of the weather for six months until we moved into the new house. I don’t know if the radio was never unpacked or we decided it was too much work, but we didn’t use it at the new house. So, we did not have a weather radio on.”
Television show interrupted
“But we were in tune with the TV because I was watching Young Sheldon when the announcer ‘rudely’ interrupted my broadcast, once again, to tell me there might be a tornado somewhere 200 miles from me. That is how I was kind of viewing it.”
“I saw that the tornado was over Lake Ouachita. I had never seen that before. I knew this was in line with where we live, and a tornado doesn’t slow down much over a lake. Now I had a little more invested in keeping track of the tornado.”
“Just before the power went off, the announcer said that the storms were merging and losing power. I thought, ‘Good, let’s return to the TV broadcast.’ Then the announcer said, ‘We found a tornado on the ground in the village.’ He pulled up a map that showed a road close to where we live.”
Sheltering in place
Tammy and I gathered a couple of flashlights and lit some candles, sitting there for less than five minutes. Tammy said, “I hear hail.” Opening the back door, they heard what sounded like a freight train coming up the hill. Mark said it was frightening.
“We’ve never sheltered in place. Even though they tell you to, you don’t think it will happen.”
“We could hear it coming closer, and as it neared, you could hear the pine trees snapping. We quickly gathered the dogs and went into an interior bathroom. One of the dogs wasn’t really happy about that. We dragged him in and closed the door. It wasn’t more than ten seconds after we closed the bathroom door you could hear the tornado passing over the top of the house. Then we started feeling and hearing the trees hit the house. We could feel shaking and heard loud booms as the trees hit the house.”
“I looked at Tammy and said, ‘This is not good.'”
“Within thirty seconds, it was gone, like a train passing by.”
“I was worried about what I would find when I opened the bathroom door. Was it going to be like Beetlejuice when they opened the door, and there was nothing there? We had no idea. I was trying to hold Tammy back, but she wanted to go right away when you could still hear the tornado.”
Discovering the damage
“We opened the door, and other than seeing that the branches were up against all the windows in the back of the house, we didn’t see any damage. We knew trees had hit the house, but we didn’t know where. We tried to get out the back door, and we couldn’t.”
“We went outside, carrying a large flashlight, and saw two massive trees lying across the garage and big holes in the roof.”
“We went across the street. We have an elderly lady across the street who lives alone and uses a walker. We climbed over the trees, and she answered the door. She had two flashlight pieces in her hand and said, ‘I can’t get this to work. Can you help me?'”
“I tried to assemble it, but the pieces were from two flashlights. We only had one flashlight and had to go back home. You could hear massive trees falling. The neighbor was in soaking wet stocking feet as she came with us. Her house suffered extensive damage and has since been condemned because a tree went through the center of her house. Two doors down, another house had the same thing happen. It was also condemned because fallen trees crushed the Arkansas room. Most of the roof was torn from pine tree damage on the house beside us. But, across the street, there is no damage, not even downed trees, because it was right on the edge of the storm.”
Recovery effort
The next morning, Brad Gaston came by and said he was looking to help people. “I was the first guy to get trees off of my house because of Brad.”
“Balboa Baptist Church cut their way up from the east, and the POA came from the other side. They met in the middle.”
“Balboa Baptist Church spent all day Friday and half the day on Saturday cutting trees off my lot. It was covered with trees, and you couldn’t see grass.”
“At about three o’clock in the afternoon, I got a knock on the door. It was a couple with about five or six young adults. It was the Gideons. They asked me if I had a wheelbarrow and a rake. I said, ‘Sure.’ This group removed all pine boughs from the lot in about two hours. When I went to thank them and pay them, they were already gone. This helped a lot and saved me eight hours of blowing and picking up debris.”
“I believe the storm wasn’t on the ground when it hit us. It was maybe 15 feet in the air. The reason why I know that is because none of our shingles were touched. The tornado took all the pine trees and the leaves on the tops of the oak trees. The bottom leaves on the oaks remain. Tammy’s pots on the gazebo were not disturbed.” Mark said he felt all his damage from the fallen pine trees.
“When we built the house, we removed all the pine trees because something like this could happen. That was the reason why. The trees that hit our house were on common property, and the branches at the top of the tree pushed up against the house. Those fallen pines did some damage, tearing off some of the eaves, and we found one of our windows was displaced. It was crushed and moved, but it didn’t break. I have no idea how none of the windows broke.”
Mark said that you should send a certified letter to anybody who borders on a lot with pine trees that could fall on your house. Notifying the other owner of a possibly dangerous situation will make the other owner responsible if damages occur.
“Our fence is gone. The dogs are happy because they have a big piece of common property to explore. But you have to stay with them.”‘
Mark said he used to be able to go to his gazebo, read a book, and enjoy the beautiful surrounding woods, but he will no longer have this experience.
Mark said he and Tammy have insurance, “But don’t think that insurance pays for everything. We are out $6,000 already for clearing trees on our adjacent lot. And that is just the start. There is a deductible on the truck. Insurance doesn’t cover the cost of repairing the yard.”
Mark and Tammy are fortunate that they already have a contractor lined up.
“We are extremely blessed that the house is livable. We were out for three days with some great friends who put us up, and we have the means to fix this. Not everybody has that. We are lucky that we have the ability to pay for the uninsured damages.” I would rather use it on a European vacation, but it is what it is. We are now in the mode of putting everything back together and getting our lives back together.”
“One of the hardest things financially is the property values of all the houses affected will plummet. Your house is not worth the same as it was when you were surrounded by pretty woods. I don’t know what that loss is, but it will be substantial. There is a house for sale down the street, right in the middle of all this. How is that going to sell now? The loss of property values is one of the more disturbing things. But that is tax deductible.”
Quinton said that the unsolicited help he received humbled him. “I had a dozen friends on my property the entire day, all day. Friday. I didn’t ask anyone to come, but they were there. They even brought lunch, and the offer is still there for anything I need, anytime I want. You find out who your real friends are when that happens.”
“I was also humbled by the POA support from Kelly Hale, Ken Unger, Matt Broom, and Todd Noles.”
Lesson learned – pay more attention to weather reports
“The last thing I want to mention is that I will pay much more attention to weather reports than before. I urge people to do the same. You get complacent because it hasn’t happened to you. With a hurricane, you have a long time to prepare. We had five minutes to prepare for this and thirty seconds until it was over. I don’t know. Our heels were still out in the hallway when the tornado came. It was quick. Take shelter if they tell you to. It could save your life. We were lucky.”
Featured image: Mark Quinton meets me at Melinda’s Cafe and Coffee.
By Cheryl Dowden
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