By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — The day after declaring a statewide emergency, Gov. Mike Beebe toured hard hit communities in the wake of more deadly storms today as Arkansans braced for yet another round of bad weather overnight.

Beebe today viewed the destruction at Vilonia, where four people died the night before when a tornado devastated much of the town.

“These folks have faced some terrible losses and I’m surprised there aren’t more fatalities, based upon looking at some of the damage,” Beebe told Little Rock television station KTHV while touring a storm-ravaged neighborhood in the Faulkner county town of 3,800.

Flood waters claimed six more lives in other parts of the state, including a man found in Perry County today after being swept away when his car was engulfed by high water Monday night, state Department of Emergency Management spokeswoman Renee Preslar said.

Beebe also visited rural Garland County, where storm-force winds damaged a church and sandwiched shingles from a rooftop between a van stacked on top of a car.

Officials also reported downed trees and power lines at Hot Springs Village, which straddles the Garland-Saline county line.

A scene of destruction in Hot Springs Village on the Garland-Saline county line. (Bill Elderton/Hot Springs Village Voice)

The governor took a call from President Obama, who asked about the damage and said that Federal Emergency Management Agency personnel would be in the state Wednesday to begin helping with damage assessments, Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said.

“As we get assessments, we’ll start making declarations for individual counties,” DeCample said.

In the meantime, Beebe and emergency management officials worried about more potential damage from a new line of storms. By this afternoon, 25 counties across, eastern, central and south Arkansas were again under a tornado watch and residents in low-lying areas were being warned of potential flash flooding as another round of storms moved through the state.

The state of emergency that Beebe declared Monday night was retroactive to April 19 when the first round of the deadly storms rumbled across Arkansas. The deaths from Monday’s storms brought to 15 the number of storm-related fatalities since April 19.

A tree lies across the 800 block of Ferry Street in Little Rock on Tuesday after being uprooted by strong winds Monday. (John Lyon photo)

Marty Trexler, a senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in North Little Rock, said today the tornado that ripped through Vilonia was an F-2 storm with winds between 113 and 157 mph.

DeCample, who toured storm-ravaged areas with the governor today, said the devastation left by the tornado in Vilonia was widespread as roofs were torn off homes, cars lifted and overturned and power lines downed.

At one location, DeCample said, he and the governor saw that a fence had been uprooted from a yard and a 10-foot section had been thrown 60 to 70 yards across a street and was embedded in the roof of a home.

“While many of the folks had issues or problems they wanted to deal with, a lot of times they just wanted to tell their story” to the governor, DeCample said. “Even folks that lost their homes, a lot of people feel lucky out there … because it could have been, and looking at the damage, it’s surprising that it’s not, worse.”

Along with the four people who died during the tornado in Vilonia and the flood death in Perry County, another five reportedly drowned during flooding in Northwest Arkansas, including two each in Benton and Madison counties, and one in Washington County.