Bush and Bill Clinton and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair were whisked away from an Arkansas high school graduation Thursday after severe winds began breaking windows.
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The National Weather Service had issued a tornado warning and sirens could be heard for several minutes as graduates of the program had their names called and posed for photos with the former president.
“Your weather is interesting”, the former Prime Minister offered during a visit to the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock on Friday, eliciting widespread mirth. He said he had been asked on Thursday night whether he had ever seen a tornado in England.
Also in attendance at the event will be the Little Rock Nine, a group of black students from Little Rock who were enrolled in previously whites-only Little Rock Central High School in 1957 after segregation in education was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.
A strong storm system sent powerful winds sweeping through Arkansas and Oklahoma, downing trees, toppling a semi-truck on the highway and leaving nearly 200,000 customers without power. Those attending the ceremony were taken to the bottom floor of the school.
It wasn’t immediately clear where Clinton, Bush and Blair were taken.
Later when the storm passed, the three leaders went to the Clinton Presidential Centre for a dinner.
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“We’re still kind of rocking and rolling across Arkansas [and] Tennessee into Alabama into the evening”, Kait Parker, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel, said later in the evening.
