RISON - Cleveland County was hit was two rounds of severe weather over the past week with an EF-1 tornado touching down south of Kingsland last Wednesday morning, and a severe thunderstorm knocking out power and toppling trees Sunday evening.The National Weather Service (NWS) at Little Rock reported an EF-1 tornado with maximum winds of 105 mph originated at 6:57 a.m. Wednesday, March 11, in northeast Calhoun County before following a 14.7-mile path into Cleveland County.A map from the NWS showed the tornado started about 3 miles south/southeast of the Hwy. 79/167 intersection in northern Calhoun County before moving northeast into Dallas County, passing between Tri-County Lake and Fordyce, before entering Cleveland County. Once in the county, it followed a path that essentially ran parallel with Hwy. 79, ending east of Kingsland near Prairie Road.During the storm, a large pine fell across both lanes of Hwy. 97 about a mile south of Kingsland. A SUV and log truck both hit the fallen tree but there were no injuries from the accident. There were social media posts showing damage to at least two structures outside of Kingsland, one being a cabin that was under construction and the other an outbuilding.Carlotta Thompson of Kingsland posted on her social media page that the tornado passed about 20 feet from their home, destroying an overnight cabin they were building on the property. One photo she posted showed a piece of sheet metal from lodged into a tree trunk about 100 yards away for the construction site. The Herald also observed several pine trees snapped in half in the woods east of Prairie Road, about 1.3 miles south of Hwy. 79.The NWS issued a tornado warning for Cleveland County early last Wednesday morning just as people were starting to go to work and school. The Woodlawn School District had its buses return to the campus after the tornado warning was issued and delayed the start of school that day....
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