October rains leave lasting impact

TRI-LAKES AREA — Three weeks after rain storms dumped record amounts of water on Arkansas, residents and officials in the Tri-Lakes area are still dealing with the aftermath.

“I saw water crossing roads that had never been crossed in my entire life,” said Grant County Judge Kemp Nall, discussing the rains that fell Oct.

29. “It hit the entire county but from Prattsville, east to the Jefferson County line got the worst of it.

Nall and Rick Brewer, country road department foreman, escorted inspectors from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management on Nov. 9 to view washed out roadways and other damage.

The inspection tour was the result of Gov. Mike Beebe’s request for federal disaster relief to repair damage done to roads and other infrastructure in 51 Arkansas counties caused by the storms, including Grant and Saline counties.

Several roads were washing out in Grant County. Nall said the rushing waters damaged County Road 75 across an 11-mile segment near U.S. 270 east of Sheridan.

Especially frustrating to the county was damage to County Road 53 off Arkansas 35. The storms destroyed a lot of the work FEMA funds helped repair during the summer, following storm damage in April.

“We had built up the road, but a lot of it washed away,” Nall said. “It is passable but there is a tremendous amount of work to do.” Along with the water damage, Nall said meteorologists have confirmed that two tornados touched down in Grant County during the storm. One came down east of Keg Mill Road, while a second touched down for about a half-mile near Arkansas 190 near its intersection with Arkansas 35.

Nall said there were no reports of injuries and that he had not heard of any reports of major damage from the storms except for water getting into floors in one school and at least one business in the county.

The judge said he did not know when he would hear from FEMA because they had so many Arkansas counties to visit.

Saline County

In Saline County as many as 70 homes had to be evacuated during the rains of late October, according to reports from the Saline County Sheriffs Office.

Bobby Teague of Salem, an associate pastor of First Baptist Church of Shannon Hills, said several families who are members of the church or who attend his youth ministry were driven from their homes when waters entered, doing severe damage.

“I know of three families who were completely washed out,” Teague said.

They lived on Clay ton Drive near Morningside Drive in Shannon Hills. The homes were in a low-lying area next to Otter Creek, Teague said.

The minister and the church have stepped up to aid one of their families who lost everything when the storm water forced sewage into their Shannon Hills home. He said the interior of the home of Stephanie Williams, her husband and four children was a total loss.

“The sewage came up into the living room, and we had to gut the entire inside of the house,” Teague said. “We canceled church services on Sunday night and a we came in and tore it out.”

The family has been staying at Teague’s home, and once he told their story on the minister’s Facebook page, the community responded.

“Putting it there really helped a lot,” Teague said. “The Lord works in many ways.”

He said a former classmate he had not heard from in years contacted the family and offered furniture and other home items.

Sutherlands Hardware in Benton made dry wall and other materials available at greatly discounted prices, and Sanders Ace Hardware in Little Rock donated other materials to help with the repairs. New tiles have been donated by a friend.

Teague said plans are that Williams and her family will be back home during Thanksgiving weekend.

Beebe has said he thinks it is unlikely that FEMA will approve funds for individual losses such as those incurred in Shannon Hills, so he has made $2 million available from the Governor’s Disaster Fund available on Nov. 11 for residents of 12 of the worst hit counties, including Grant County. The governor added Saline County two days later.

According to a statement from the governor’s office, residents whose homes were temporarily or permanently uninhabitable because of the flooding and severe storms on Oct. 29 and 30 can contact the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management at 1-888-683-2336. Applications for uninsured damage grants and temporary housing assistance will be accepted through Wednesday.

Around t he a rea, high water will continue to be a problem. Entergy Arkansas announced they were slowing the annual winter release of water from Lake Ouachita and Lake Hamilton near Hot Springs because of high waters in southern Arkansas and Louisiana, where the United States Coast Guard has already closed the Ouachita River to commercial traffic.

The release began Nov. 7 but will not end until Sunday, a week longer than is usual.

“The bottom line is that there is just too much water in the Ouachita River watershed,” Bobby Pharr, process superintendent for Entergy Arkansas’s Hydro Operations, said in a statement released a few days after the storms. “Entergy Arkansas and the Corps of Engineers are managing the lake levels with the utmost concern for the folks downstream.”

Boaters are advised to use caution on the lakes during the water release because unexpected shallow areas can form, and the rains increased the amount of debris washed into the lakes. Owners of floating docks are also warned to take precautions to ensure that boats and docks are able to adjust to lower lake levels.

Meanwhile the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s issued a warning to hunters to be cautious in the woods because of the water still remaining in low-lying areas.

- wbryan@arkansasonline.com

Tri-Lakes, Pages 59 on 11/19/2009

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