BELLA VISTA -- John Loncarevic was awake at 11:15 p.m. Wednesday when he heard a loud boom near his home on Lord Nelson Drive. Then he felt the concussion.
Shortly after, Loncarevic smelled smoke and got his family out of the house. About the time he was calling 911 to report a fire, the Bella Vista Fire Department arrived to put the blaze out.
The fire at the Loncarevic's 29 Lord Nelson Drive home was one of 22 lightning strike calls answered by the Fire Department between late Wednesday afternoon and early Thursday morning.
"We were slammed," Fire Chief Steve Sims said Thursday.
Loncarevic's insurance company was in the process of evaluating the damage, so he didn't have an estimate, Loncarevic said. There was a fire in the lower level of the house as a result of the lightning strike, he said.
Loncarevic praised the quick action of firefighters.
"I was pulling some things from the house when they pulled up," Loncarevic said. "They did a great job."
The explosion of the lightning strike also damaged an adjoining home.
There were three calls in the Brompton Lane area, including two fires just after 4 p.m., Sims said. The home at 16 Brompton Lane was heavily damaged, while the home at 3 Brompton Drive was filled with smoke.
Around 11:14 p.m., the home at 12 Brompton Lane was destroyed by fire after it took a direct lightning strike, Sims said.
Also just after 11 p.m., several homes on Lord Nelson Drive were affected by a lightening strike, he said.
The Bentonville Fire Department responded with the Bella Vista department to both incidents, Sims said. A Bentonville ambulance also was called about a possible electric shock of a man on Sarum Drive, but the victim refused transport.
"We don't really have enough people to do two structure fires at the same time," Sims said.
Rescue crews battling swift currents in a flooded Carroll County creek near Holiday Island on Thursday were removing a sport utility vehicle swept off a low-water bridge during heavy rain Wednesday evening, authorities said.
A witness reported seeing a person in the vehicle as it crossed the Elk Branch Bridge on Arkansas 187 about 10 p.m. Wednesday as strong thunderstorms and a possible tornado raked the area. A rescue team pulled the SUV from Leatherwood Creek late Thursday afternoon but found no one inside, said Nick Samac, director of the Carroll County Office of Emergency Management.
He said teams were scouring the woods downstream in case someone was washed away from the vehicle.
"We got a lot of rain last night," Samac said. "The bridge is washed out. We had to do several swift-water rescues."
Carroll County received between 3.5 inches and 5 inches of rain as storms "trained," or repetitively traveled over the same area Wednesday, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a flash flood warning.
The Kings River near Berryville rose from 4.68 feet at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday to 12.5 feet three hours later after heavy rain soaked the area.
Storms Wednesday evening spawned at least three possible tornadoes -- in Benton, Carroll and Madison counties. National Weather Service teams from Tulsa, Okla., were traveling to those areas to look at damage.
The slow-moving system developed earlier Wednesday in Oklahoma as cold air from the west collided with warm, moist air, and formed a tornado in Sand Springs, just west of Tulsa. The tornado killed one person and hospitalized at least nine, the Associated Press reported.
Gov. Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency for 25 Oklahoma counties that were hit hardest by the storm, including the state's two largest -- Oklahoma and Tulsa counties.
Tens of thousands of Oklahoma residents were without power early Thursday as officials assessed the damage.
The storms ended a five-month period in which the weather service didn't issue a thunderstorm or tornado warning in Arkansas. On Wednesday, several warnings were issued as the system headed east after crossing into the northwest corner of the state.
The storms uprooted trees, peeled roofs off chicken houses and destroyed a barn in northern Madison County.
General News on 04/01/2015