SPRINGDALE, Ark. — Some local businesses in Springdale impacted by last week’s tornado will spend weeks cleaning up the damage. As businesses go picking up the pieces, they continue serving their community.
Little Johns Transit Service is already back in the office after the tornado ripped off parts of the roof and floods part of the office space.
“So I started getting calls about 7 o’clock in the morning. That’s when some of our agents show up. They called and said we didn’t have power and it looked to be some roof damage. So when I showed up there were red panels that had been ripped off the back of the building and that part of the building and upstairs was flooding,” General Manager Randall Smith said.
Randall says luckily no one was there when the storm hit, but several employees were there to make the first damage assessment.
“Nothing like I’ve ever seen in real life before,” Derek Brown at Little John’s said about the damages.
Derek is one of the employees that called about damages and says he knew a tornado happened when he stepped outside his home and could see the George Elementary damages across the street.
“I feel blessed that everybody survived. It could’ve been a lot worse. These things happen but it seems like the community came together really well and is working hard to get back to the way we were before it did happen,” Derek said.
The general manager at Little John’s says he’s grateful for the Northwest Arkansas community coming together at a time like this.
The transit service has already started repairs on the building.
DOWNLOAD THE 5NEWS APP
DOWNLOAD FOR IPHONE HERE | DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID HERE
HOW TO ADD THE 5NEWS APP TO YOUR STREAMING DEVICE
ROKU: add the channel from the ROKU store or by searching for KFSM in the Channel Store.
For Fire TV, search for "KFSM" to find the free app to add to your account. Another option for Fire TV is to have the app delivered directly to your Fire TV through Amazon.
To report a typo or grammatical error, please email KFSMDigitalTeam@tegna.com.