Diaz police officer injured in EF-4 tornado
DIAZ, Ark. — Stories of fear and heroism after not one but two EF-4 tornadoes carved a path of destruction in northwest Arkansas.
The town of Diaz in Jackson County was hit by one of the twisters, with winds of 190 mph.
Officials said that reportedly seven people were injured by the tornado and three were critical.
One of the people critically injured was a police officer responding to the area of the tornado when his SUV was hit by the tornado.
He reportedly hung upside down by his seatbelt for more than an hour before he was found.
'It's devastating,' Dakota Turner said. 'But we're alive. God's still good.'
While speaking with WREG, Turner surveyed all that's left of his home in Diaz, Arkansas.
Though his home is just a shell of what it once was, Tucker said he knows much more could have been lost Friday night.
National Weather Service confirms a pair of rare EF-4 tornadoes touched down in Arkansas
'Me and my wife was sitting here, trying to debate [whether] to go to the neighbor's house because we don't have a safe room,' Tucker said. 'And well, she made the right call. So, I got to the back door and got the kids – I got three kids, a six-year-old, a three-year-old and seven-week-old. We loaded up and within five minutes, that tornado hit our house.'
Around Diaz, the devastation is easy to see, with very few structures on the town's northwest side spared. Even trucks, cars and tractors were twisted like metal toys.
The tornado aftermath has kept one local woman busy.
'I'm an insurance agent, so I've been on the phone all morning with people here,' Donna Casteel said. 'I had a lady in Searcy that had hail damage.'
Casteel realized that the weekend's storms caused her home to not be exactly where she left it.
'My house – I think what happened, it [the tornado] picked it up and just shifted it off the foundation,' Casteel said. 'I've got roof damage and stuff.'
One family said that they gathered in a below-ground shelter, where they held hands and prayed as the tornado began moving over the shelter.
'I've never personally been in a tornado like this,' Ryan Cloud said. 'It will take your breath away for sure.'
How to donate to Grenada County storm victims
Cloud, the next-door neighbor of the family, said he received a call from the people trapped in the storm shelter.
He told WREG that he, along with other neighbors ran to help.
'I was like, 'Keep talking. We can hear you. We're getting closer,' Cloud said. 'It took about 10 or 15 minutes to dig all the stuff off of them and they were glad to see us.'
Donations for Diaz tornado victims are being accepted at Diaz City Hall. Food, water, flashlights, batteries and garbage bags are among the items needed.
According to the National Weather Service, another EF-4 tornado was reported in Izard County. The last report of multiple EF-4s in Arkansas was in March 1997.
So far, there have been three tornado deaths in Arkansas, all in Independence County.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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