Slow swell arrives at PB homes

Residents turn to sandbags, prayer in face of floodwaters

Wendy Emerson checks on pumps Friday in the living room of her home on Holiday Drive at Island Harbor Estates in Pine Bluff. Earlier in the week, she and her husband began putting their furniture on blocks and setting up pumps as the Arkansas River encroached.
Wendy Emerson checks on pumps Friday in the living room of her home on Holiday Drive at Island Harbor Estates in Pine Bluff. Earlier in the week, she and her husband began putting their furniture on blocks and setting up pumps as the Arkansas River encroached.

PINE BLUFF -- Dozens of Pine Bluff residents who live along the Arkansas River spent Friday defending their homes from rising water, with some sandbagging them and others praying that the flood will spare them.

photo

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

A mailbox on Holiday Drive in Pine Bluff is just about covered by rising water Friday.

photo

30169888A

5/29/15 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STEPHEN B. THORNTON A flooded home along Holiday Drive at Island Harbor Estates in Pine Bluff Friday. Residents of the are could only reach their homes by boat.

The swollen river sat at 44.3 feet Friday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service in North Little Rock. Flood stage is 42 feet. The river was expected to crest at about 44.6 feet late Friday or early today, according to the weather service. A crest at that level would mark the fifth highest in the city's recorded history, weather service statistics showed.

The last flood of this magnitude occurred in October 1986, when the Arkansas River reached 44 feet at Pine Bluff.

Dutch King, county judge of Jefferson County, said the only saving grace is that the river has been slow to swell, unlike raging floodwaters earlier this week in Texas that swept away homes and killed several people.

"If we can say we are blessed, it's because of that," King said.

The areas most affected by floodwaters are Island Harbor Estates and the Trulock residential addition just north of the city, along with Pine Bluff Regional Park near downtown.

On Friday afternoon, water had seeped into some homes near the river, but pumps and sandbags were keeping it at bay for others.

King said as many as 50 or more homes could be affected before the water recedes.

"We know it's going to get pretty bad, but people are prepared," he said. "They have had time to get ready, but it's always a terrible thing to see water go into people's homes. We just pray that it doesn't get any worse."

Leon Sanders, who lives near the river, said he gathered valuables from his home and moved them to his mother-in-law's house in White Hall in case the river engulfs his property. Sanders has made his home along the river for nearly 40 years and has seen it flood several times before.

"Back in the '80s it was real bad, but folks who live around here are resilient people," he said. "It's not going to get us down. We will make it just fine. As long as everyone stays safe, that's what matters."

Jackie Smith said she, too, had moved most of her belongings to higher ground earlier in the week. Smith said she is relatively new to life near the river and sought prayer as a way to stay calm.

"It's in God's hands, and there is nothing we can do to stop it," Smith said.

Eric Maynard, manager of the Mike Huckabee Delta Rivers Nature Center in Pine Bluff, said he and other Game and Fish Commission employees were boating into the facility Friday to feed the animals housed there and to make sure everything was shored up.

Late Friday afternoon, Maynard had his hands full with an alligator that had been captured not far away. He said the animal will be housed for the time being at the center, which sits inside the now-flooded Pine Bluff Regional Park.

"It's a bad time to be dealing with an alligator, but that is what we do," Maynard said. "Our jobs keep going, even in high water."

Water was not expected to reach inside the center's building. Other affected roads include Island Harbor Marina Road, which was mostly submerged.

Less than a mile away from the flooding Friday afternoon, children played at Pine Bluff's new splash water park as temperatures neared 90 degrees and the sun was shining brightly. It was an odd juxtaposition that Pine Bluff resident Gayle Sawyer, who noshed on grapes at a nearby picnic table, said she couldn't resist photographing with her phone's camera.

"You would never know it to look at this beautiful scene that a natural disaster was happening so close by," Sawyer said. "It's so funny how Mother Nature works sometimes."

A Section on 05/30/2015

Upcoming Events