Man vs. nature
Farm owner, friends fight to save property
“It’s a house worth saving”
— Mark Hannibal
In Texarkana, Ark., down in farmland bottoms that border Miller and Lafayette counties, a family works tirelessly to save their home.
Mark Hannibal said he built the two-story, red-brick home in 1984 on his farm, where he harvests pecans as a hobby and to sell.
“Our property is accessed by Miller County roads, but actually is in Little River County,” said Jacob “Luke” Hannibal, Mark Hannibal’s 31-year-old
son. “Once you cross over the (county) levee, you are actually in Little River County.”
“Our place is right on the (Red) River, surrounded by a (private) lake. … It’s kind of like an island, one way in, one way out,” he said.
Mark Hannibal, his wife, Debbie; his son; and 20 or so volunteers, friends and neighbors have built a trench about 10 feet deep and 5 feet wide and a 4-foot levee in an effort to save the home from the threat of potential flooding.
The makeshift levee is no afterthought. Mark Hannibal said he has been monitoring water levels in the Fulton, Ark., area for weeks, since the heavy rains began. Though the trench is dug and the levee in place, the family is far from finished working, he said.
Mark said the water is about 5 feet from crossing his road, and he estimates that when the river rises to 33 feet, the water will breach the levee up the road.
“It’s looking like 33 feet is going to breach that levee down there,” Mark Hannibal said. “I’m worried about my house. I’m not scared … an evacuation plan, I don’t have one. I’ve been there and done it in (19)90.”
In May 1990, when record flooding occurred in the Four States Area, Mark Hannibal said his wife; his son, then 6; and 8-year-old daughter survived the flood by boating through to their vehicles, parked on top of the levee. Mark Hannibal said he wore hip waders in waist-high water and pushed his family in the boat to their vehicles.
“Saturday afternoon, around 3 or 4 o’clock, it will probably be an island. Where we are standing (a barn across from his levee and house) will probably be under water,” Mark Hannibal said. “Something in the numbers aren’t making sense, though. It’s predicted that Wednesday around 2 p.m., the water will be at 32.6, but that could be more. I take my readings from Fulton, and we are a couple of miles up from there.”
Jacob Hannibal said the Little River mixes with Red River about 2 miles from the family home.
“We are actually building a trench and building a levee on the inside of the trench surrounding the house,” he said. “We are putting plastic in between the trench and the dirt, with sandbags going along the bottom of the trench. … One of our neighbors got us about 300 or 400 yards of plastic (rolls).”
He said the plastic adds support to keep the homemade levee from breaching: “With (water) hitting it and hitting it, it’s got support, with the plastic and sandbags along the bottom … it will actually help it out even more. If the levee is breached in Miller County, then the house is under water, but hopefully it’s not going to do that.”
“If it goes over that (Miller County) levee, it will be catastrophic anyway,” he said.
Mark Hannibal estimates that at 31 feet, the river will cross the road near his house, and that is what concerns him.
“We have mainly today (Friday) and tomorrow (Saturday) evening,” Mark Hannibal said of the work, adding that there will be more trips to Fulton to retrieve sandbags, and there was still plastic yet to be put into place on his levee.
“It’s a house worth saving,” he said.
The family plans to do much the same as in 1990, boat in and out, if needed, and are parking all vehicles and equipment on the road past the levee, according to Mark Hannibal, who added that he was eager to get the plastic all the way around the levee surrounding his home. He said plastic will go on the top of the levee, down the edge of the top, and he plans to add more sandbags on top of the plastic.
Mark Hannibal said that he understood that county officials couldn’t help out much with full sandbags, as “this is only one house” and “if it breaches the levee, we’re talking about several homes (damaged).”
However, Mark Hannibal wants to save his family’s home, and many neighbors and volunteers, including his son’s fiancée, Kristin ‘Krissy’ Dillard, are eager to help.
Dillard, a volunteer firefighter for the Pleasant Grove area, with her 14-year-old son, Rhett Coburn, said she is remaining positive about the situation, and Jacob Hannibal said he hopes to be able to build the couple a home on the farm in the future. The couple are set to marry in April 2016.
“I try to think positively about everything, even in the worst situations,” Dillard said. “It’s the only way to survive. If more people would help each other out, this world would be a much better place.”
Jacob Hannibal said the situation may get pretty bad with the flooding, but “that’s what we have a boat for—to hop in the boat and go.”
“I try to think positively about everything, even in the worst situations. It’s the only way to survive.”
—Kristin Dillard