Arkansas

Residents of an east Arkansas town have been without water for the past 2 weeks due to below-freezing temps

Published

2 years ago

January 30, 2024

Residents of an east Arkansas town have been without water for the past 2 weeks due to below-freezing temps

HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. — Residents of an east Arkansas town have been without running water for the past two weeks after the state was hit by below-freezing temperatures, and the outage has forced them to line up for bottled water, fill up jugs or take showers at a truck brought in by the state.

The outage affecting about 1,400 residents of Helena-West Helena is the second in the past year for the small town 52 miles (84 kilometers) southwest of Memphis, Tennessee, located along the Mississippi River.

The town faced a similar crisis last summer, when the same part of the city was without water in June.

Local officials are racing to fix leaks throughout the city and restore water to residents, but they say they’re facing the longer term challenge of overhauling a system with an infrastructure that dates back decades.

“The issues we’re facing now have been building up for decades,” said John Edwards, a former state lawmaker and executive director of an industrial park who’s been tapped by the mayor to assist in responding to the water crisis.

The outages are affecting one of two water systems for Helena-West Helena, which was two separate cities until 2006. One of the wells serving the system failed during the winter weather that hit the state, under pressure from leaks and dripping pipes.

“It’s hit or miss,” Russell Hall, director of the Phillips County Office of Emergency Management said. “One house might have halfway decent pressure, and another house might have a trickle, depending on gravity and other things.”

The state National Guard has brought in a water truck to provide potable water, and a 16-stall portable shower was brought in for residents to use. Each day, distribution sites for the water have seen a steady line of people filling up on water to use for their homes.

“It’s very difficult when you get up in the morning and you can’t take a bath, you can’t shower,” Mack Williams, 59, said as he picked up bottled water from a county distribution site. “You’ve got five, six, seven, eight people in the house, it’s very difficult.”

Gerald Jennings has been using a yellow bucket to catch rainwater to boil, then use to bathe and flush toilets. He said he knows of others doing the same thing.

“I’ve got to use what nature gave me, which was the rain,” the 58-year-old retiree said as he stood outside his home. “We got lucky that it was raining during this particular time.”

Laprece Stayton, a 40-year-old beautician, was picking up water at a distribution site. She said she had running water at her house, but it was low pressure and coming out “a little yellow, a little discolored.” She’s boiling water or not using it at all.

She said she was doing ok because she feels she is not affected as badly as other people and that she did not blame any single person for the issues.

“It’s no one’s fault,” she said. “If you have a car, you can’t keep a car for 60 years without having wear and tear on it. Pipes are going to have wear and tear on them.”

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders last week urged a state commission to expedite a $100,000 emergency loan for the city to refurbish two wells and replace valves in the city’s water system. The Arkansas Natural Resources Commission has since approved what is the second $100,000 loan the panel has issued the city since last year’s crisis.

Sanders called the loan “part of my administration’s larger efforts to help the city refurbish its water system and prevent future system failures.”

Hall, the county’s Emergency Management director, said he doesn’t know when the water will be restored. He said citizens in general have been understanding of the emergency water distribution process.

“I’m sure that people are frustrated,” Hall said. “Three-quarters of my 911 dispatchers do not have water at their house right now. They have to come to work and still have to go through with their daily lives.”

The bigger question facing the city is how much the long-term fix to its water system will cost, and who will pay for it. Edwards said it would cost about $5 million to fix the failed well and make fixes to the water plant and other wells that would help keep the city from landing in the same crisis in six months.

The city’s water outage comes as other towns face problems with their aging water infrastructures. Several other cities faced water shortages in Arkansas during the winter storm. And in neighboring Tennessee, the rural town of Mason was without water for a week after freezing temperatures broke pipes and caused leaks in its neglected system.

Residents in three rural communities in far eastern Kentucky along the Virginia border have also been without water for more than a week after freezing weather.

“What’s happening here can and will happen in other places,” said Edwards, the director of an industrial park assisting during the water crisis. “We’ve got a lot of utilities in this state that have aging problems, and I hope this will be a cautionary tale for what officials in other communities can do to avoid being in this circumstance.”

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Arkansas

Baseball notebook: Kansas and Arkansas to play in winner’s bracket

Published

37 minutes ago

May 30, 2026

Press Room

Baseball notebook: Kansas and Arkansas to play in winner’s bracket

Last year Kansas and Arkansas were in the Fayetteville Regional but never got a chance to play. That will change tonight at 5 p.m. when the top two seeds face off in the winner’s bracket of the Lawrence Regional.

Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn watched the Jayhawks last year and believes they are a better team than last year.

“They are a very good team,” Van Horn said. “They were in our regional last year. We didn’t face them, but you could see from the stands or our offices when we watched them play that they’re physical.

He continued:

“They added to it, got a couple key guys back, and they can hit the ball over your head with the best of them. Really good here (at home). They had one rough weekend here against West Virginia. Other than that, they’ve been great.”

Kansas will face a talented pitcher in Dietz

The Jayhawks are set to face one of the best pitchers they have seen this season. Hunter Dietz is expected to start for the Razorbacks and should be healthy.

In the SEC tournament against Texas, he took a line drive off his leg that sidelined him. He threw a bullpen earlier in the week and looked good according to Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn.

“That’s the plan, is to pitch him,” Van Horn said. “Unless something crazy goes on with his leg or whatever. But yeah, he seems to be feeling good. He seems to be moving around good and no complaints. I feel like he’s ready to go, so that’s who we’ll go with.”

[Jayhawks open with a win over Northeastern]

Dietz is projected to go in the first round and some draft analysts say he might be the best left-handed pitcher in the country. The 6-foot-6 lefty’s fastball is consistently in the 93-96 mph range and he mixes in a cutter and slider.

This year he has eye-opening numbers with 121 strikeouts and only 29 walks.

Containing the running game from Northeastern

A lot of the talk going into the first round against Northeastern was their speed on the bases. They led the nation in stolen bases by a wide margin but did not get one against Kansas.

“It was the emphasis going in,” said head coach Dan Fitzgerald. “Now, the Big 12 prepares us for that. You think of the teams that we play against, you’ve heard me refer to the Big 12 as the take-what-they-give-you league.”

Fitzgerald gave credit to his coaching staff working with the pitchers on their delivery and holding runners on.

“It took a lot of game planning,” Fitzgerald said. “I thought that Coach Scott and Coach Holland did a tremendous job today. I thought the scout was amazing, but that was a big deal to hold them down.”

Kansas will have a rested bullpen

One good thing going into the Arkansas game is a rested bullpen. Dominic Voegele threw seven innings on 102 pitches and was followed by Boede Rahe who threw 32 over two innings of work.

Fitzgerald said after the game it was a key factor to get through game one with two pitchers.

“It was huge, and they were both fantastic,” he said. “Boede has told me daily the entire season that he’s good to go, so he’ll be able to bounce back. Dom was so efficient, and again, it’s so hard to be efficient against a lineup like that.”

Rahe leads the team in saves and he has appeared in back-to-back games this season. If he is needed in a close game tonight don’t be surprised to see him available for a limited pitch count.

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Arkansas

No. 5 Arkansas Razorbacks’ Historic Season Comes to an End at WCWS

Published

11 hours ago

May 30, 2026

Press Room

No. 5 Arkansas Razorbacks’ Historic Season Comes to an End at WCWS

Hunter Corneliusen
May 30, 2026

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. – No. 5 National Seed Arkansas Razorbacks’ historic season came to an end on Friday night with an 11-0 (5 inn.) loss to UCLA at the Women’s College World Series inside Devon Park.

With the loss, Arkansas finished its season with a 47-13 record that culminated in the program’s first Women’s College World Series berth. The Hogs’ 47 wins were the second-most in program history, trailing only the 2022 team’s 48-11 overall record.

Tianna Bell, Atalyia Rijo, and Kailey Wyckoff all recorded base hits for Arkansas in the loss. Wyckoff and Karlie Davison both drew walks. Payton Burnham (14-4) took the loss for Arkansas after allowing four runs on three hits in 1.1 innings of work.

Taylor Tinsley (33-7) took the win for UCLA, pitching five shutout innings while striking out two and allowing three hits and two walks.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Payton Burnham made her 19th start of the season for Arkansas, while UCLA went with senior Taylor Tinsley.

In the top of the first inning, Atalyia Rijo had a hand in all three outs of a 1-2-3 frame that featured a pair of groundouts and a popout. Tinsley responded with a 1-2-3 inning herself, courtesy of a strikeout, flyout, and lineout in the home half of the first inning.

Aleena Garcia gave UCLA a 1-0 lead with a lead-off solo home run to dead center field in the top of the second inning. Kaniya Bragg got hit by a pitch, and Alexis Ramirez singled before Soo-Jin Berry made it a 4-0 game with a three-run home run to left field. Following Ramirez’s homer, Saylor Timmerman entered in relief for Arkansas. Megan Grant later extended the Bruins’ lead to 7-0 by way of a three-run home run to center field, her 42nd of the season. Senior LHP Robyn Herron entered with two runners on and two outs in the inning. UCLA extended its lead to 9-0 courtesy of a two-RBI double off the top of the wall in right field by Bragg.

In the bottom of the second inning, Karlie Davison became the first baserunner of the game for Arkansas after reaching on a two-out walk. She later advanced to second base on a single from Atalyia Rijo. Kailey Wyckoff later walked to load the bases, but UCLA would escape with a flyout to get out of the inning.

In the top of the third inning, Herron registered a pair of strikeouts while UCLA made it 10-0 by scoring a run by way of a wild pitch. Tinsley retired the Hogs in order in the bottom of the third inning.

Herron retired UCLA in order in the top of the fourth inning while picking up a pair of strikeouts. Tianna Bell singled down the third-base line to lead off the bottom of the fourth.

In the top of the fifth inning, the Bruins’ Jolyna Lamar increased the UCLA lead to 11-0 with a solo home run to right field.

Kailey Wyckoff singled down the third-base line to lead off the bottom of the fifth inning before UCLA retired three consecutive batters to end the game.

NOTABLES

Arkansas finished the season with a 47-13 overall record. The Razorbacks’ 47 wins were the second-most in program history, trailing only the 2022 team’s 48-11 overall record.

Up Next

The Razorbacks will be back in action in the spring of 2027.

For schedule updates and other news, go to ArkansasRazorbacks.com, or follow @RazorbackSB on X, Instagram and Facebook.

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