By Cortney Winston
JONESBORO, ARK. –– Imagine you’re a pilot. You get to work and you’re prepping a plane for your flight. It’s cloudy, but you aren’t worried about the weather. Until you see the clouds get darker, and you realize they’re moving towards you. Then imagine seeing a funnel cloud form and touch the ground, picking up debris, and it’s still moving towards you. This is what Sterling Saul experienced Saturday, March 28th.
Sterling is a commercial pilot that flies private aircraft out of Jonesboro. He was working at the airport when the EF-3 tornado hit.
“I was looking at the windsock out at the airport and it was showing that it was moving away from us, so I wasn’t too worried about it,” said Sterling. “And then I finally saw the funnel cloud, and saw it touch the ground, and saw it moving towards us, ripping up stuff.”
“I looked back over at the windsock and it shifted directions straight at us. At this point I knew it was coming right at us and it was too late to leave or too late to do anything else.”
Sterling and about 10 others took cover in a nearby building. He said there was a lot of yelling and instructions, the others cautioning to keep their head down and cover their mouth. Dust and dirt were flying everywhere. Sterling wedged himself between two poles and held on.
“It felt like a wind tunnel,” said Sterling.
It passed through the airport in less than a minute. When it was over and Sterling came out of cover, he saw demolished cars, including his own. He also saw the spots where buildings used to be, and the airplane he was about to fly was now under a hanger door with the airplane itself on top of a tractor.
Planes, hangers, and main buildings of the airport were destroyed. Flights will now go to Paragould or Walnut Ridge.
The tornado had winds of 140 mph and stayed on the ground traveling towards Brookland. It weakened, jumping off the ground then touching down again as an EF-1. It produced much damage across the town of Jonesboro, but there were no fatalities. 22 people were reported injured.