Garland City residents evacuate ahead of flooding

Some residents of the southwest Arkansas town of Garland City were leaving their homes Sunday ahead of expected flooding along the Red River, an emergency management official said.

“They’re just sporadic, people going to stay with family and friends right now,” according to Miller County Emergency Management Director Terry Purvis. “Of course with a disaster like that some are going to just wait and see” how severe the flooding becomes.

An emergency shelter has been established in Texarkana, Purvis said.

The National Weather Service issued a flood warning until further notice for areas along the river as the U.S. Corps of Engineers releases water from flooded lakes and reservoirs upstream in Oklahoma.

“It’s going to flood,” said weather service hydrological meteorologist Aaron Stevens in Shreveport, La. “We’re seeing a lot of agricultural land that’s being flooded and cattle are being evacuated.”

At least 31 people have been killed in storms that began in Texas and Oklahoma during the Memorial Day weekend, but the flooding is just now arriving in southwest Arkansas, Purvis said.

“We’ve worked hard for the last two days addressing concerns on the levees, sandbagging where cattle may have walked over, decreasing the height of the levee, areas of concern where the levee might have had erosion,” Purvis said.

“Now we are the proverbial deer in the headlights. We’re next to receive the flood.”

The river was rising at a rate of about 1½ inches per hour from Saturday night through Sunday morning, down slightly from about 2 inches per hour earlier Saturday, Purvis said.

“We do expect that to go back up and accelerate.”

Flooding was also a concern along the Arkansas River that runs from west to east through the state’s midsection, despite a brief lull in the water’s flow, according to meteorologist Charles Dalton with the weather service’s Little Rock office.

“In Little Rock it may drop a half foot or so, but It’s going to rise through midweek as releases from Oklahoma make its way into the Arkansas River basin,” Dalton said.

Dalton said the forecast indicates relief from the ongoing rain in the coming week, but the change comes with a trade-off.

“We’re probably going to dry out and warm up,” Dalton said, with temperatures in 80s and 90s.

Staff photo by Curt Youngblood Zane Lawver, center, and David Lawver, left, load sand bags for Steve Doss at the emergency command center in Garland City, Ark. Doss is helping a friend prepare for flood waters from the Red River.

Staff photo by Curt Youngblood The West Shore Restaurant in Garland City, Ark. is surrounded Sunday by flood waters from the Red River.

Staff photo by Curt Youngblood Aaron Posner with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers inspects the levee system Sunday afternoon near Garland City, Ark. Water is approaching the levees, but is not expected to top them.