White River in check as rainfall soaks state

Storms soaked an already waterlogged Arkansas with more than 3 inches of rain Thursday and Friday, but the additional precipitation won't affect the flooded White River, National Weather Service meteorologists said.

The river is expected to crest at 34.3 feet in Clarendon early this morning -- about 3 inches lower than the National Weather Service had predicted Thursday. Flood stage in the Monroe County town is 26 feet.

Emergency officials had evacuated some residents along the river earlier this week in anticipation of the rise, and officials in Des Arc built a levee to prevent water from encroaching near its downtown. Others sandbagged homes and businesses farther north along the river.

Flooding in Arkansas


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"Things are good in Monroe County," Monroe County Office of Emergency Management coordinator Philip Norman said. "Our levees are doing what they are supposed to do and we've not had any problems with them."

Norman said the northern end of the county received 2 inches of rain Thursday evening and Friday morning, but it's not affecting the flooding.

Kathy Shadwick of St. Charles said the White River continued to rise slowly in the Arkansas County town Friday. The river reached 31.79 feet by 5 p.m. Friday, up from 30.7 feet Thursday morning.

Shadwick said roads leading to the White River National Wildlife Refuge were covered with water. She said the town is on a hill, so no homes are threatened by water, but roads in low-lying areas of the county are closed because of the high water.

"All you can do is drive down an incline, see the water and back yourself out," she said.

Rain began falling in most of the state Thursday afternoon as a cold front moved in, meeting the warm, moist Gulf air.

Blytheville received 2.66 inches of rain from Thursday evening until 6 a.m. Friday, the latest amounts available from the National Weather Service. Jonesboro saw 1.91 during the same time, El Dorado recorded 1.88 inches and De Queen received 1.53 inches.

Showers continued to fall Friday but were "spotty" as the system moved out of Arkansas, said meteorologist Jeff Hood of the National Weather Service in North Little Rock. Some areas in the state were expected to receive from one-half to 1 inch of additional rainfall Friday.

"It was hit or miss with the rain Friday," he said. "The rainfall won't affect any river crests. We're still seeing positive signs that the White River is receding."

Flooding in the state began after storms on April 29 and April 30 dumped up to 6 inches of rain in Northwest and northern Arkansas. Runoff from those rains caused flash flooding and storms spawned several tornadoes and violent thunderstorms, downing trees and knocking out electricity to more than 85,000 customers.

At least nine people died.

In southern Missouri, 10 inches of rain fell and the Current River in Van Buren, Mo., and Doniphan, Mo., rose to record levels. The river emptied into the Black River in Randolph County, and on May 2 the river in Pocahontas crested at a record-high of 28.95 feet.

Water topped the levees, causing them to break in nine spots and sending a rush of water south across U.S. 67 and thousands of acres of fields to Lawrence County.

The water eventually flowed back into the Black River and then southward to the White River.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson declared 36 counties as disaster areas and representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency began damage assessments in Northwest Arkansas and in central Arkansas on Wednesday.

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture estimated flooding damaged 937,000 acres of Arkansas cropland and losses to farmers could reach $64.5 million. Rice was the most damaged crop, said Jarrod Hardke, extension rice agronomist for the system.

"If those numbers scare you, you should be terrified," Hardke said in a news release. "I'm being conservative. There's no sugar-coating it."

Hutchinson asked U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue to assist rice farmers with a recent change in crop insurance.

Farmers were hit with an estimated $335 million in cropland losses in flooding in 2011. The Risk Management Agency's Common Crop Insurance Provisions require rice producers affected by recent flooding to replant rice through June 9 to receive insurance benefits.

Hutchinson said research showed that planting in June would result in a 30 percent decrease in yields and asked for flexibility in the enforcement of the new provisions.

"Excessive, additional financial hardships will be placed upon producers already facing significant challenges if this needed flexibility is not provided," the governor wrote Friday in a letter to Purdue.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers crews continued monitoring levees along the Mississippi River as that river crested Friday in Memphis.

Jim Pogue, a spokesman for the Corps in Memphis, said there are no problems with levees on the Arkansas side of the river and the river should crest in Arkansas City -- the most southern river gauge in Arkansas -- by Wednesday. By then, the floodwater from the White River should have emptied into the Mississippi River, he said.

"Our levees can handle a high volume of water," Pogue said. "We're looking at a slow fall on the White River, but hopefully it will move out before the Mississippi River crest reaches there."

State Desk on 05/13/2017

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