Floodwaters caused by heavy rains late Tuesday through early Wednesday in multiple cities and counties across north Central Arkansas had largely receded by late Wednesday afternoon but they left a significant mess behind.
“Several counties in Arkansas have reported damages to infrastructure, road closures, and evacuations,” according to a news release from the Arkansas Division of Emergency Management on Wednesday afternoon.
Baxter, Cleburne, Conway, Faulkner, Lawrence, Marion, Searcy and Stone counties all reported some impacts from flooding, according to Lacey Kanipe, a spokesperson for the agency. The effects of the rain were widespread across parts of north and Central Arkansas, she said, with no one area being the epicenter.
According to the National Weather Service office in North Little Rock, some radar estimates showed rain totals of over 10 inches in north Arkansas during the flooding.
According to Melissa Penn, the director of the Office of Emergency Management in Marion County, the floodwaters had receded in her county by late afternoon and creek waters have calmed significantly. She said that the main issue was debris left over from the flooding and ensuring that roadways are safe.
Penn said no injuries were reported in the flooding.
She said 83 people were evacuated from the Creekside Health and Rehabilitation Senior Facility in Yellville and taken to the Marion County Fairgrounds.
The fairgrounds are a designated Federal Emergency Management Agency shelter, said Yellville Fire Chief Steven Evans. It was also used during the tornadoes in May. While the location is useful for natural disasters, nursing home residents won’t be expected to stay there long. By Thursday, the department plans to help transport them to facilities with extra beds in Harrison, Mountain Home and Flippin.
“Most of them are disabled in some form or fashion,” Evans said. “You can’t just load them in a car and take them. You have to load them into specialized vehicles to transport them.”
Tanner Breuer of Yellville said he heard from his mother that the nursing home got so flooded the water level was right underneath the beds.
“It looked like the beds were floating in the water,” Breuer said.
Along with floating beds, Breuer said a nurse working at the home showed him pictures of exercise equipment out of place and other furniture completely swept away by the water.
According to Penn, heavy rains began at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday and continued all night with especially heavy storms at 3 a.m. The first reports of flooding were at around 3 a.m. Local rain gauges showed that there were approximately 7-7.5 inches of rain during that time period, she said. Some officials estimate that there could have been up to 10 inches of rain in some places, she said.
Flooding led to significant road problems in the county, Penn said. She said 14 feet of a 100-foot bridge on Marion County Road 8060 were swept away by flooding. One vehicle was on the bridge when the damage occurred, but water rescue teams were able to save the person in the car.
The Marion County Courthouse and annex buildings were damaged in the flooding, Penn said. She also said that floodwater was so high that it went over a small bridge on Arkansas 14, affecting the cars on the span.
Along with several local businesses across Yellville’s downtown square, the Marion County courthouse was closed Wednesday after the flooding. Dan Miller, a Marion County maintenance worker who was working to clean up flooding in the courthouse basement, was driving to work around 4:30 a.m. in his wife’s car when he noticed how bad the flooding might get, he said.
“I came to work around 4:30, and I crossed the Shawnee Town Branch with my wife’s car and I should not have,” Miller said. “It was white-capping against the rails.”
Evans said he realized early after hearing radio traffic from nearby fire departments that the town was going to encounter significant flooding. As the Shawnee Town Branch Creek began to overflow from the rain, the department quickly got word that it was flooding into the nursing home, he said. Because roads were flooded with 3 or 4 feet of water, Evans said the team’s response was delayed.
Eventually the department got into town and began evacuating the nursing home with the help of other nursing homes and local schools that brought in buses. From 4:30 a.m. to noon, the Fire Department and rescue team were transporting residents of the nursing home to the fairgrounds.
Around 40 residents were evacuated from Flippin and taken to a FEMA shelter at Flippin High School, and approximately 30 people who lived at the Greenbrier Gardens Apartment Complex were evacuated as a result of flooding, according to multiple sources.
Penn said Flippin had reported some severe flooding damage and around 30 homes were evacuated. Those displaced were taken to the local FEMA shelter near the school district.
Flippin Mayor Keith Hogan said Wednesday afternoon that a motel and some nearby residential buildings had to be evacuated.
Seawright’s Motel, located at 160 N 1st St., was evacuated around 4:30 a.m., Hogan said.
“About 10 or 12 people were evacuated from the motel and some of the nearby residential buildings due to the rain causing flooding,” he said. “Some even had pets with them.”
Flooding also affected homes on Park Street, the mayor said, where about 25 people were evacuated. Some people were also evacuated from a local trailer park as well.
Those evacuated were transported to the FEMA shelter in Flippin, he said.
The American Red Cross established a shelter where Flippin residents will be housed, the division of emergency management release said.
“I’ve been here 23 years and a family we helped evacuate today has been here practically all their life, and we’ve said we’d never seen floodwaters like this,” Hogan said. “We got about 8 or 9 inches of rain in about six hours.”
Faulkner County has declared a state of emergency, the county’s spokesperson Sherry Skaggs said Wednesday afternoon.
“We have five houses we’re doing evacuations for,” Skaggs said. “Originally we had 30 evacuations in Greenbrier but some people have been able to go back home.”
She said that those rescued were taken to emergency shelters in town that open in cases of dangerous weather.
Skaggs said no injuries had been reported at this time.
“We’ve been good about getting that information out there and people have been good about staying off the roads,” she said.
“Some areas are receding, which is good news. But, there is still some rain forecast,” she said. “Right now it is just kind of a waiting game. We’re watching to see what recedes and hoping we don’t get any more rain.”
“Greenbrier Gardens Apartment Complex reported that 30-plus residents were evacuated due to flooding. Round Bottom Road at Herpel Road near Mountain View is flooded and residents are being evacuated,” the division of emergency management news release said.
In a text to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Wednesday afternoon, Skaggs wrote that the county received 7 inches of rain in some areas in a short period of time.
“We typically do not see that much rainfall in such a short period in this area,” she wrote. “The most important thing is people understand not to drive through water. As creeks and other watersheds run down, we will see more water coming up.”
According to a news release from the Faulkner County sheriff’s office, County Judge Allen Dodson issued an emergency disaster declaration along with multiple other counties in the state. They said a number of roadways flooded throughout the county, and the sheriff’s office is asking that all citizens of Faulkner County report all storm and flooding damage to the Office of Emergency Management.
Faulkner County is expected to receive additional rainfall overnight tonight, they said. This is consistent with weather forecasts from the National Weather Service.
There’s the potential for storms in Central and north Arkansas, but likely not to the same extent of the storms that caused the flooding. There is, however, a chance for heavy rain in southwest part of the state, according to the weather service.
Any rain in areas affected by flooding will likely be moving faster than Tuesday and Wednesday’s rain according to Willie Gilmore, a meteorologist with the weather service. “Last night the storms were slow moving and they just kept regenerating themselves,” Gilmore added. This is part of the reason they were so damaging, he said.
Information for this report was provided by Daniel McFadin of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
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