On Wednesday, July 23, 2014, Northwest Arkansas experienced a thunderstorm classified as a “derecho”. According to The Weather Channel, “derechoes are large clusters of thunderstorms that produce widespread wind damage, usually as a result of one or more curved lines of thunderstorms known as bow echoes.” Damage reports from this storm stretched a distance of over 300 miles – from Kansas to the Arkansas/Louisiana/Texas border, says the National Weather Service.
NWA Restore It, Inc. began receiving calls that same day. The high winds of this storm caused damage ranging from fallen trees to severe roof damage. Northwest Arkansas had widespread damage from Bentonville and Bella Vista to Fort Smith and Holiday Island, with the majority of the damage in the Springdale and Fayetteville area. The night of the event, we responded quickly to each of the calls and worked tirelessly to remove fallen trees, place temporary repairs on emergency claims, and conduct repair assessments. Just a few days later, we had received close to 30 claims from this particular storm. Currently, we are wrapping up final assessments on these claims in order to begin the repair work.
