Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and First Gentleman Bryan Sanders survey storm damage in Cave City on Saturday, March 15, 2025. (Photo by Becca Paschal/Arkansas Governor’s Office)
The severe storm system that swept across Arkansas over the weekend spawned six tornadoes, including two strong EF-4 twisters, according to a Monday report from the National Weather Service’s Little Rock office.
Three deaths occurred overnight Friday when a tornado struck Cushman, a town of about 500 in southeastern Independence County, according to KARK-TV. The Weather Service estimated that storm as an EF-3 with peak winds of 165 mph. It tracked for nearly 26 miles before devastating Cave City in Sharp County.
The NWS updated preliminary damage assessment said an EF-4 tornado with a top wind speed of 170 mph formed southwest of Fifty-Six in Stone County before moving into Izard County, where it toppled many trees and shoved cabins off their foundations.
The second EF-4 tornado, with estimated peak winds of 190 mph, began near Oil Trough in Independence County. The twister continued into Jackson County over 14.5 miles and an estimated width of about one mile, according to the Weather Service.
The Arkansas Public Safety Department on Saturday said 32 people had been injured in the storms. The agency’s Division of Emergency Management reported 16 counties affected by storm damage: Baxter, Clark, Fulton, Greene, Hempstead, Hot Spring, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Lawrence, Nevada, Phillips, Randolph, Sharp, Stone, and Woodruff.
In a brief press conference while visiting storm-hit Cave City on Saturday, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she’d spoken with President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that morning, “who have already let us know that they will be with us to help and provide resources as requested.”
Sanders had already declared an emergency in the storm-affected areas and released $250,000 from state disaster relief funds to assist with recovery efforts.
“We’ll take care of people first and worry about the paperwork later,” she said in another public comment on Monday.
The Weather Service said the two EF-4 tornadoes marked the first time since 1997 that two storms of the same strength had struck the state on the same day.
Here’s a list of the other tornadoes, according to the NWS’s preliminary assessment:
- An EF-1 storm with maximum winds of 100 mph touched down near the town of Gamaliel in Baxter County, damaging the post office and a fire station, before moving into Missouri.
- An EF-2 with top winds of 120 mph began just south of Smithville in Lawrence County and tracked toward Black Rock and into Reyno in Clay County, for almost 39 miles.
- Another EF-2 storm with 120 mph peak wind hit Fitzhugh in Woodruff County on a 5-mile path, damaging power lines and felling trees.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.