About two dozen Maumelle residents pleaded for help Monday night from the Maumelle City Council after flash flooding from heavy rains the day before forced them from their homes and destroyed belongings.
Four to 6 inches of rain fell during storms in parts of Maumelle in just hours Sunday afternoon, Mayor Mike Watson said. City police and firefighters used boats to evacuate several residents from flooded homes.
Two dozen or more residents from houses on Garden Oaks Drive and The Gables apartments, 1500 Union Court, came to Monday's City Council meeting to ask why their area had flooded for the second time in three years. They also wanted to know where and how to get assistance.
A few fought back tears and said many children had to miss the first day of school Monday because they had lost their clothes and supplies. For some, Sunday was a repeat of flooding that happened during a prolonged rainstorm in 2011.
"Why am I homeless tonight?" asked Karen Cochran of Garden Oaks Drive. "I can't do this every three years and go homeless. I need some answers."
Others spoke of being without a place to sleep Monday night. There were 24 families displaced from The Gables apartments, said Michelle Cook of the LEDIC Management Group that oversees the complex. In 2011, 60 families there lost their homes, she said, with the apartments needing $1.8 million in renovations afterward.
"And we're back here again," Cook said. "What are we going to do? What are you [the city] going to do? No one came by our office to ask what can they do. We need it [help] instantly."
After the flooding in 2011, city workers found and removed a low-water bridge that had collapsed and was blocking water runoff, Watson said.
"We thought that solved the problem," he said. "It did not."
Dustin Chumley -- a homeowner on Garden Oaks Drive, a street next to where the city's Rolling Oaks soccer fields flooded during Sunday's storm -- said he bought his house three years ago, and "at least four times" he's had to fight water from getting into his house.
"I have to take planks off my fence to let the water go through," he said. "It's not just when there's 8 inches of rain at one time. It could be 2 inches of rain."
Watson and several city aldermen pledged to begin immediate efforts for the community to donate clothes, food and shelter to those most affected. Alderman Marc Kelley arranged by phone during the meeting for a laundry service to gather clothes from apartment residents today to wash.
Watson referenced the April tornado that devastated nearby Mayflower and resulted in several community efforts to give aid to the city and other damaged central Arkansas areas.
"We know our community will reach out and donate," Watson said.
Metro on 08/19/2014