CADDO GAP, Ark. — Flash floods swamped campgrounds along a pair of southwestern Arkansas rivers early Friday, killing at least 20 and leaving dozens missing.
Gov. Mike Beebe, who was en route to Montgomery County and was briefed on the ongoing search and rescue efforts, said at 3 p.m. that the death toll has risen to 20.
About 30 people have been rescued so far, including a woman pulled from the Caddo River near Amity.
But the tragic toll was evident at the site of the worst flooding, with body bags lining the river at the campgrounds where dozens were vacationing.
The normally peaceful Caddo and Little Missouri rivers rose by 20 feet overnight, swamping hikers and campers spending the night in the remote and normally serene Ouachita Mountains. The area also includes second homes, hunting camps and U.S. Forest Service campgrounds.
Several recreational areas dot in the remote southwestern region of the state, with the the Ouachita National Forest covering 1.8 million acres in central Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma.
The Albert Pike Recreation Area, a 54-unit campground in the Ouachita National Forest, was packed with vacationing families, many of them from Louisiana and Texas, said Gary Fox, a retired emergency medical technician helping out families. Two dozen people were hospitalized and another 60 were rescued from the steep Ouachita Mountains valley.
“This is not a one- or two-day thing,” Fox said outside a command post near Langley, along the Little Missouri. “This is going to be a week or two- or three-week recovery.”
Five flood victims were in stable condition at the St. St. Joseph Mercy Health System in Hot Springs, a spokesman said.
Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler says he does not know whether those killed early Friday were campers or area residents. He says officials moved a refrigerated truck to Langley to use as a temporary morgue. As of 1:30 p.m., bodies were being transported to Mena.
“The mission of this department right now is to extricate the living and locate the dead,” he said.
Gov. Mike Beebe said rescuers are searching for anyone still trapped by the flooding, but that they do not know how many there may be. He said the water level was at 3 feet Thursday night in Montgomery County and peaked at 23.5 feet Friday morning.
Speaking at a jobs announcement at a Dumas plant, Beebe said it’s unclear how many of the victims were campers or residents in the area, and had no information on how many more people were missing. He also didn’t know how many of the victims were adults and how many were children.
“That’s one of the things that concerns me,” he said.
It was unlikely that many of the missing could have left the area on their own after the flood. Fox said nearly everyone lost their vehicles when the floodwaters swept through the recreation area.
Marc and Stacy McNeil of Marshall, Texas, survived the flooding by pulling their pickup between two trees and standing in the bed in waist-deep water.
“It was just like a boat tied to a tree,” Marc McNeil said, describing how the truck bobbed up and down.
They were on their first night of camping with a group of seven, staying in tents. The rain kept falling and the water kept rising throughout the night, at one point topping the tool box in the back of the truck.
“We huddled together, and prayed like we’d never prayed before.” Stacy McNeil said.
By dawn the rain stopped, the water receded and they were able to walk to safety.
Tabitha Clarke, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service office in North Little Rock, said the water rose quickly between 1:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. A river gauge at Langley, just south of the Camp Albert Pike area, had a peak reading of 23.39 feet — up from 3 feet deep at midnight.
Between 2:45 a.m. and 3:45 a.m., the river rose 8.08 feet and continued to rise, according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey, which monitors the gauge.
The rugged terrain likely kept some campers from reaching safety, Clarke said. Some parts of the valley are so steep and craggy that the only way out is to hike downstream. Any who had taken cars to the camp sites would have been blocked at low-water bridge crossings that are inundated when the rivers rise, she said.
At that time of night, many campers were likely still asleep when their tents began to fill with water, she said.
Brigette Williams, spokesman for the American Red Cross in Little Rock, said that between 200 and 300 people were believed to be in the area at the time of the flooding. She did not know how many of those were campers and how many were local residents.
Williams said the Red Cross would provide shelter for anyone displaced by the flooding.
According to a news release, the Arkansas National Guard has deployed a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter and crew to the campground to assist with rescue operations. The team departed Camp Robinson at approximately 9:45 a.m., Friday. The helicopter is equipped with lift capability, which provides its soldiers the ability to be hoisted down into flooded areas to rescue stranded personnel.
A search and rescue operation on Caddo River was still in progress midday Friday.
Weather service readings showed that 7.6 inches of rain fell in the area overnight.
Information for this article was contributed by The Associated Press and The Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
