Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Rain pounds the region
Widespread flooding causes road closings, rescue calls
Storms brought widespread flooding Saturday across Northwest Arkansas, causing motorists to stall out on submerged streets.
“We are experiencing a high volume of flooded roads and drivers who are driving through the high water and becoming stranded, so those became swift water rescue calls,” Kate Gaffigan, deputy director of Benton County’s Division of Public Safety, said in mid-afternoon. “If you are driving and come across water, do not enter that water.”
Roads across Benton and Washington counties were closed and the area was under a flash flood watch until this morning. The flash flood warnings and severe thunderstorm warnings came in waves all day and late into the night.
The National Weather Service in Tulsa, Okla., reported rain totals by early evening ranged from about 3 inches in Fayetteville to almost 8 inches in northern Benton County. The forecast was for another 2 to 4 inches to fall overnight.
Some storms spit hail and wind up to 60 miles per hour. Trees toppled including one across Arkansas 279 in Centerton.
Emergency workers and officers reported receiving calls of flooded streets, closed roads and creeks out of their banks throughout the region.
“Garfield, Gentry, Bentonville, Lowell, Gravette, Centerton, Rogers. It’s all over. It’s not an east side, west side, south side or north side. It’s spread out everywhere,” Gaffigan said.
Kelly Cantrell, spokeswoman for the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, said, “We’ve had reports from small towns as well as deputies in rural areas that there is flooding in small cities and rural roads in Washington County,”
Gaffigan said the rain became especially fierce at 1 p.m. and she had rescue workers responding to three calls of motorists stranded in swift water.
John Luther, director of Washington County Emergency Management, said the Knob Hill Fire Department went to Beaver Lake to help a person whose boat was too small for the fast water, but there were no major issues beyond that.
Cantrell posted a Washington County road conditions chart on her agency’s Facebook page, listing flooded roads either impassable, closed or still open. About 20 roads, bridges and intersections were closed, including the area of Gregg Street and Van Asche Drive in Fayetteville.
The Wilkerson Bridge in Johnson was impassable.
Melissa Reeves, Springdale’s public relations director, said several streets were closed, including the area of Wagon Wheel Road and Cory
Street and the area of Don Tyson Parkway and Serenity Street.
John McLarty, project manager of the Trail of Tears Association’s Arkansas Chapter, stood on the edge of Springdale’s Walter Turnbow Park, watching water rush through Spring Creek, waiting to give a tour to Mike Taylor of the National Park Service’s National Historic Trails Division. The rain had briefly stopped in midafternoon and McLarty said he would still show Taylor the Northwest Arkansas section of the Trail of Tears.
“I’ve lived here for 40 years, so I know which areas flood and to avoid,” McLarty said.
A tornado warning was issued briefly about 4:30 p.m. for south Washington County when a radar indicated tornadic circulation near the border of Adair and Sequoyah counties in Oklahoma and northern Crawford County, according to meterologist Amy Jankowski.
The Weather Service forecast showed a 30 percent chance of showers before 1 p.m. today and cloudy, breezy conditions tonight. Conditions are expected to be mostly sunny with a high of 67 degrees throughout Monday and partly sunny with a high of 75 degrees on Tuesday. There’s a 60 percent chance showers will return Tuesday night.