A brand new, $14 million school is among the wreckage after
a half-mile-wide tornado swept through the Little Rock suburb of Vilonia, the
Associated Press reports. The tornado was described as leveling the school,
which had been set to open this fall.
"There's just really nothing there anymore,” Vilonia
Schools Superintendent Frank Mitchell said. “We're probably going to have to
start all over again."
The school was intended to serve students in the fourth,
fifth and sixth grades and covered 10 acres of land. The district had applied
to FEMA for funds to build a “safe room” at the school, designed to protect
students from tornadoes and other severe weather.
The tornado that hit Vilonia and nearby Mayflower could be
rated as the nation's strongest twister to date this year. It has the potential
to be at least an EF3 storm, which has winds greater than 136 mph, National
Weather Service meteorologist Jeff Hood said.
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