LEPANTO, Ark. — Clean up from Wednesday’s powerful and destructive storm system continues in many Arkansas communities. In the town of Lepanto in Poinsett County, winds ripped the roof off the town’s museum and sent it crashing down on the local library.
Four downtown buildings were damaged, but quick work saved thousands of library books from being ruined. Amy Ford is the librarian at the Goldsby Public Library in Lepanto.
“I’m not going to lie. Yesterday was a little bit of [an] ‘eye opening’ experience to say the least,” Ford said. “I’m basically the information hub of Lepanto. If you can’t find what you need and looking for at City Hall. you come to the Library.”
Wednesday’s powerful and windy storm system sent her scrambling to protect more than 35 thousand books and materials after the roof of the nearby Lepanto Museum was torn off, bouncing onto two adjoining businesses and crashing onto the library.
“…Literally flipped it like a coin across the top of the other buildings, ” Ford said.
She remembers how quickly gray skies turned dark and dangerous.
“There was a big BOOM. The electricity went out and ceiling tiles, the lighting fixture grate started coming down,” Ford said.
The storm hit while Ford her son and a library patron were inside. A young man was using a computer and was thought to have received a ‘glancing” blow from this light fixture.
“It looked like it hit him, but I hollered at him and he said, ‘no it didn’t get me Ms Amy…but it got close,'” Ford said.
While there were a few holes in the library roof, Amy Ford, along with dozens of volunteers covered every book, DVD and computer with donated plastic tarps.
At the Lepanto Museum, the situation is a little more costly. Museum Committee member Steve Jernigan said it will take thousands of dollars to replace the building’s “pitched” roof.
“This is where it was leaking…coming from the second floor. We’ll go up there in just a minute,” Jernigan said.
Now the museum and its contents are unprotected from future rainstorms. Jernigan said this is a part of history he can live without.
“They called me about 20 or 30 minutes after it hit and I came down here and, of course, water was pouring and it was raining everywhere…It was WILD,” Jernigan said.
We’re told some items from the Museum could be temporarily stored in Dyess where the Johnny Cash Museum is located.
This isn’t the first disaster to hit downtown Lepanto. Last June, the town’s first store, which was more than a hundred years old, burned to the ground.
The Poinsett County Library Board will meet next Friday to discuss repairs to the Lepanto library. In the meantime, the nearest library is in Marked Tree, Arkansas.
