GREENWOOD, Ark. — On April 19, 1968, one of the deadliest tornadoes to strike Arkansas tore through Greenwood, killing 13 people and injuring more than 200. The tornado was rated an F4.
Around 3:15 p.m., the tornado touched down in the southern section of Greenwood for four minutes. The city hall, courthouse, businesses, and many homes were destroyed by the tornado.
"Everything was moving. It's a miracle that we didn't have more casualties or fatalities than that," Mayor Doug Kinslow said.
Mayor of Greenwood Doug Kinslow was 10 years old and in the fourth grade. He lived about two to three blocks from the school on Daisy Street, and says as a walker, he was leaving the school at around 3:10 p.m. Kinslow explained that he only knew of the strong rain and wind coming down as he walked from school, not knowing the extent of the storm.
With the storm getting stronger and the tornado coming through Greenwood, Kinslow held onto a holly bush, while his feet were lifted into the air from under him.
"The wind was blowing so hard. There were a lot of shrubs there, and so I ran over to grab one of those sticky Holly bushes, just to kind of get stable. I'm sure I was petrified or terrified. So I grabbed that bush. And the wind actually brought me up off my feet," the mayor said.
Once it passed, he got in the car with who he recognized to be someone from church. The person drove him home, where he met with his father Fred Kinslow. His father had run from downtown to his family home after experiencing and seeing the devastation of the tornado.
Doug says he remembers getting to where his home was and asking his father, "Where is our house?"
The Kinslows had only moved into the home 19 days before the tornado had come through and destroyed it, leaving only the bathroom where his mother and siblings were kept safe.
"His barbershop was gone, totally gone, just a pile of rubble. The cafe he was in had broken windows, but the structure was still there," Kinslow said.
Doug Kinslow's father, Fred Kinslow's barber shop was in the town Square. With a coffee shop next door, the barber would typically stop by. The mayor says his father finished his cup of coffee and was headed out explaining that school was out and his kids would be home. Someone stopped him and convinced him to stay for another cup of coffee because no one would be stopping by the barbershop during a storm.
"My dad is walking home, knowing his business is gone and not knowing if his family's still alive. And he's pausing if he came upon somebody to check on them," Doug Kinslow said of his father.
Mayor Kinslow said it was important to realize how the community received and gave help to rebuild.
"They came together and everybody did a great job, and just built Greenwood back and bigger and stronger."
However, people say that those four minutes in April of 1968 forever changed the community.
Doug says that a few weeks after the storm, the family was rebuilding their home while using bricks that had been scattered in order to save costs. The mayor had been alone, working on removing excess cement from the bricks when a storm came through. He ran to a rented home that had been provided to the family for free, which he notes was typical in the Greenwood community in the time after the tornado.
"A thunderstorm came up, and I didn't know that I would be scared like that. But I was pretty terrified. And I was quickly looking for a way to get to a house that we were living in after the tornado," he said.
Greenwood was updating their sirens last month when severe weather was expected for the area.
"I was kind of nervous. We had a hard time getting our new sirens in here just last month," he explained.
The system is now up and running in Greenwood. The mayor explained they turn on automatically while monitoring the weather through the National Weather Service.
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