More buckets of rain forecast

Flooding peril closes Pulaski County school district today

Rain, rain and more rain is expected for Arkansas into the weekend, according to National Weather Service forecasts.

A cold front bringing storms that moved through the state Tuesday night stalled over southern Arkansas, causing heavy rain to continue. The cold front is expected to dump up to 6 inches of rain from Wednesday into Sunday from Texas to West Virginia.

The heaviest amounts forecast centered over most of Arkansas, resulting in several inches of rain across the state, flooding some highways, raising river levels, toppling some utility poles, and causing a school bus on its morning route to slide off a rural road in Pulaski County.

All schools and offices in the Pulaski County Special School District will be closed today because of widespread road flooding, a spokesman said Wednesday evening. The district will use the day as an Alternative Methods of Instruction day, or a workfrom-home day, for students and teachers.

No fatalities related to the weather had been reported by Wednesday afternoon, according to a state Department of Emergency Management spokesman.

Flash-flood warnings on Wednesday covered much of Arkansas from the southern to the northeastern portions, including central Arkansas. Additional flooding can be expected in many areas as more rain occurs, especially as rivers rise.

“We’ve certainly had plenty of areas that are flooding,” said Marty Trexler, senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service in North Little Rock. “The rain hasn’t been heavy in such a short period where flooding is really flashy. Our concern is with the heavier rain now and through the next several days when river flooding will become a bigger threat.”

Rain will lessen during the day today, Trexler said, but will pick up again tonight and through Saturday with a “small chance” for severe storms Saturday.

“This system is gradually pushing to the east,” Trexler said. “We still expect another round Friday and into the weekend, picking up for the whole state again over the weekend. There is a small chance of some severe storms for most of the state Saturday.”

Colder air across northern Arkansas is enough for the possibility of patchy freezing drizzle or light freezing rain in those areas, he added.

Strong winds from the storms toppled utility poles and damaged farm buildings near De Queen and blew over a grain bin near Pocahontas early Wednesday. Perry County had reported 8.5 inches of rain, and western Pulaski County had more than 7 inches. Almost 6 inches of rain was reported in Saline County, where the Saline River is expected to rise by about 5 feet and overflow, flooding some streets, said Tabitha Clarke, a hydrologist at the National Weather Service in North Little Rock.

Seventeen students were rescued after a Pulaski County Special School District bus drove off the side of a flooded road and became stuck at Marche Road and Marche Lateral Road between the North Little Rock and Maumelle city limits.

Pulaski County Road and Bridge Department workers were sent to the accident scene about 8:30 a.m. to remove the students and the driver, according to Pulaski County sheriff’s office spokesman Cody Burk. No injuries were reported.

Students were taken to a different school bus and driven on to school, district spokesman Deborah Roush said.

Students from Maumelle Middle School and Maumelle High School who live in the flooded area of Marche Road, as well as students at Sylvan Hills Middle School and Sylvan Hills High School who live in the flooded area of Jacksonville Cutoff Road, were dismissed at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday in anticipation of additional localized flooding affecting rural roads, Roush said. The Sylvan Hills High School freshman campus and Cato Elementary School closed by midday, she said.

The Pulaski County district encompasses all areas of the county, including some rural areas. Parents and students in those areas are familiar with alternative school bus routes and areas prone to flooding, Roush said. Updates on weather and road conditions affecting students and bus routes in those areas can be found on the district’s website, pcssd.org.

The Jessieville School District in Garland County will be closed today because of road flooding, according to the district’s Facebook page.

High water had closed portions of four highways, according to the state Department of Transportation’s online idrivearkansas.com map. Those highways were Arkansas 282 in Crawford County, Arkansas 224 in Jackson County, Arkansas 13 in White County and Arkansas 83 in Lincoln County.

As of late Wednesday afternoon, 13 counties had reported flooding problems to the state Department of Emergency Management, though no counties had declared emergency situations, said Dan Noble, spokesman for the agency.