Cities resurfacing as flood waters recede

By Jeff LeMaster, Elizabeth Sharp

LITTLE ROCK — Communities throughout the Three Rivers area are recovering from massive flooding this week caused by as much as 12 inches of rain that fell March 17-19.

Pocahontas Mayor Gary Crocker said his town saw significant damage. Among the hardest hit was Patrick Manor, a seniorcitizen housing development, which had 6 inches to 2 feet of water in 14 of its units. Also seeing flood damage in Pocahontas was the city’s street and sanitation departments and Randolph County’s only radio station, KPOC, which went off the air for more than 72 hours.

Crocker said Tuesday that the city’s efforts are focused on safety and assisting citizens who lost property in the floods.

Between 40 and 50 people were evacuated, but Crocker said they were “an eyelash away” from having to evacuate up to 600.He added that the people of Pocahontas are counting their blessings and grateful that the floods didn’t take more than just buildings.

“Everybody just understands that it’s something that happened that nobody could control,” he said. “We didn’t lose any lives up here, so we’re thankful for that.”

Flood waters also effected Augusta in Woodruff County. Bobby Bowen, an insurance agent, said that most of the damage was in the Taylor Bay area of the White River. He said about 15-20 homes had water inside, and about 20 people were evacuated.

Angie Meachum of Judsonia said the roads near the river are flooded as well.

“They’re having to park out by the highway and boat in to their homes,” she said.

Bowen added that no missing persons or fatalities were reported, and recovery efforts willbegin when the water goes down and authorities are finally able to survey the damage.

“The basement of our store was 5 feet under water, and it got in three of our storage bays,” said Rick Knowles, owner of Knowles’ True Value.

While there were no deaths or evacuations in Calico Rock, there were three homes and several businesses damaged from the floods.

Three buildings at Wiseman’s Motel were flooded, as were two at White River Landing, Knowles said. Jenkins Trout Dock was destroyed.

City official Aaron Teague said now that the water has gone down, the people of Calico Rock are waiting for Federal Emergency Management Agency officials to bring in Dumpsters, and the Department of Corrections will soon begin to clean up different parts of the town.

Other areas, like Newport, are counting their blessings this week.

Though the White and Black rivers, which converge just northof the Jackson County seat, overflowed into the valleys surrounding them, the levees around Newport held, Mayor David Stewart said.

“We had water up on the levee as high as it’s been since 1982 ... ,” Stewart said. “We’ve been lucky. Our levees have held. We’ve had a few small problems where we’ve had maybe a few small holes in the levee, but we’re doing OK.”

Batesville is also recovering quickly from the flood. Jonah Shumate, president and CEO of the Batesville Area Chamber of Commerce, said some of the smaller towns in Independence County got hit harder by the storms, but Batesville proper is “in great shape.”

He said there will be some areas along the White River that will require cleaning up, such as Riverside Park, but overall the damage was minimal.

“I think we dodged a major bullet,” Shumate said.

Three Rivers, Pages 53, 54 on 03/27/2008