Arkansas Flooding Continues with White River Still Rising
Jon Gambrell, Associated Press Writer
Water from the river poured into Bayou Des Arc, an area just north of the town of 1,900, damaging mobile homes, travel trailers and frame structures. The National Weather Service in North Little Rock estimated the river rose 7 feet in the last four days, with a crest of 33.5 feet anticipated for Tuesday afternoon.
"It's the worse," said Trey Newby, 17, who piloted a small boat with an outboard motor through the brown water at an RV park along Bayou Des Arc. Newby and friend Dustin Wadkins, 18, pointed at a U.S. flag hanging vertically from a nearby pole, only its hilt showing.
"That's probably 22 feet off the ground right there," Newby said.
Forecasters reissued a flash flood warning through Tuesday morning for communities along the White River, saying deceptive clear skies and sunshine hid the fact that what could be the largest water surge in a quarter-century continued its way downstream.
At Pocahontas, the Black River sliced through a 60-year-old levee before emergency workers and volunteers could stem the tide with a mountain of sandbags Saturday. The Black enters the White River near Newport in northeast Arkansas. Flooding remained widespread.
National Weather Service hydrologist Steve Bays said Monday that the Black River had crested but that it would take several days for the flood waters to recede. Meanwhile, the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department closed U.S. 67 south of Pocahontas to Jackson County. Parts of Arkansas 14 east of Batesville and in Jackson County were also closed.
In Des Arc, Tom Roe Memorial Riverfront Park was under water, a placard signaling a duck crossing now jutting out of the White River. The water came close to reaching a nearby grain silo, but the city's downtown sits on high ground and appeared to not be in immediate danger Monday.
Just south of Des Arc and just beyond a levee, First Street stood flooded Monday. Water went more than halfway up the wheels of passing pickups, a stray dog chasing behind them.
Rick Thompson, 38, stood there about 100 yards away from his flooded beige mobile home. Water lapped against the trailer's small wooden front porch as Thompson said he didn't expect the river to rise so high. He said he had no flood insurance and had yet to go inside his home.
"I'm going to come back with my boat and get my pictures and bibles and things like that out of there and pray on the rest of it," Thompson said.
Prairie County Sheriff Gary Burnett, a lifelong resident of the area, said he had never seen the river act like that.
"It came up just so fast," said Burnett, 37. "I'd never seen it come up so fast."
As of Monday, Burnett said there had been no reported injuries from the flooding.
John Calhoun, 55, and his wife Sue Ann, 52, struggled Monday morning to corner their nine pygmy goats in their water-logged pasture along Bayou Des Arc. The goats bleated at first, then began a high-pitched, shrill whinny as the Calhouns lifted them over the fence and put them inside a wire cage.
"They don't take to cold water well," Sue Ann Calhoun said.
While water had flooded their backyard, John Calhoun said it likely wouldn't go into their single-story, manufactured home — as long as the river didn't continue its rise. Waukita, the Calhouns' black-and-white border collie, stared impassively out the window of the home at the waters.
www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2008-03-23-arkansas-levees-flooding_N.htm