Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Build away from river seen as ’19 lesson
Faulkner County officials recall sleepless nights waiting to see if levees held
After the 2019 flooding that swept across Faulkner County and threatened to burst through the Lollie Levee, county officials have pushed residents not to build in flood-risk areas.
“The river has some pretty sights, but it doesn’t look so pretty when there is water up to the windows,” County Judge Jim Baker said. “Just build on a hill somewhere.”
Faulkner County was among several counties along the Arkansas River that dealt last year with the effects of record-high river levels caused by water released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Oklahoma.
Record rainfall across Oklahoma and Kansas filled and overfilled flood-prevention reservoirs in Oklahoma, and Corps of Engineers officials said they had no choice but to release the floodwaters that eventually made their way downriver and into Arkansas.
The flooding, which began in late May and reached its final crest at Pendleton (in Desha County) in June, broke records at several points along the river’s course, causing damage to thousands of homes and breaching a levee near Dardanelle.
Flooding along the Arkansas River Basin did an estimated $3.1 billion in damage across Oklahoma and Arkansas, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.
Baker said most of the Faulkner County homes that
were damaged by the flooding have been fixed, but seven were damaged beyond repair. The county is still trying to get the Federal Emergency Management Agency to buy those homes.
The county judge said once FEMA purchases the land, the homes will be destroyed, and the county will take over the land. No structures will be built on it again.
“That will be a challenge to maintain this additional land, but we want to see these people get some compensation, so we have to agree,” Baker said.
One of the seven homes needs to be destroyed soon because it is at risk of falling into the river, he said. Three of the other homes are in the Lake Conway area, and three are in the Cadron Creek watershed.
Baker said county officials have since told businesses and homeowners who apply for building permits about the risk of building in the floodplain and have encouraged them to look for land elsewhere.
“Get out of the way, and get out of the low areas,” he said. “Please don’t build in the flood plain. You will always regret it.”
Baker said he knew he was seeing something unprecedented when he witnessed Cadron Creek back up and flood Arkansas 25.
“This is when we knew this was going to be worse than anything we have ever seen,” Baker said. “You never think you are going to see Lake Conway overflow into people’s homes. You don’t think you are going to see a highway get overcome.
“You just didn’t know where it was going to stop.”
Baker said the mass of floodwaters rushing downriver led to four consecutive sleepless nights, as fear over whether the Lollie Levee near Conway would hold became the primary worry for the county.
“We were really concerned that the levee wasn’t going to hold,” he said.
Mayor Bart Castleberry said when every other plan had failed, officials decided to build an emergency dam. Construction started in the middle of the night.
“We strategically made an A, B and C plan, and we used all of them,” Castleberry said. “When you get the call that 1,000-pound sandbags have been washed away, then you naturally think the levee is going to breach.”
The levee held, but areas along Cadron Creek and Lollie Bottoms flooded, and homes near Lake Conway received large amounts of flood damage, Baker said. The rush of water caused Palarm Creek to overflow into Lake Conway, flooding low-lying areas along the lake’s 52-mile shoreline.
Lake Conway runs from the Mayflower area to about 3 miles south of Conway, though property on the Mayflower side of the lake took the brunt of the damage when water reached homes.
Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said water flowed backward from Palarm Creek over the Lake Conway Dam into the lake.
“Fortunately, there was no damage to the structure,” he said.
Baker said the county built three access roads to get to people who were trapped in their homes because of flooded roads.
“We have since closed those roads, and we hope to never use them again,” Baker said. “It changed lives for people who didn’t even know they were vulnerable.”
“I hope people have learned from this,” he continued. “People had never seen anything like this in our lifetimes, but now we have seen the power of the river.
“The things that happened at Lake Conway were shocking.”