2010 — June 11, Flash Flood kills campers, Ouachita Mts., Albert Pike Rec. Area, AR– 20

— 20  NCDC. Storm Data, Vol. 52, No. 6, June 2010. Asheville NC: NESDIS, NOAA, p. 4.

— 16  Associated Press. “Flash Floods Kill at Least 16 at Ark. Campground,” June 11, 2010.

— 16  New York Times. “Flash Floods Sweep Through Arkansas Camps,” June 11, 2010.

— 12  Associated Press. “Police Say 12 Confirmed Dead in Arkansas Floods,” June 11, 2010.

— 12  Reuters. “At Least 12 Dead in Arkansas Flood: State Police,” June 11, 2010.

 

Narrative Information

 

NCDC: “A slow-moving low pressure system entered Arkansas on the night of June 10^th. This system had caused flash flooding on the two nights prior as it had moved eastward across Texas.

 

“As this made its way into Arkansas, thunderstorms erupted over southwest Montgomery and northwest Pike counties early on the morning of June 11th. Rain fell from these storms at the rate of 2 to 3 inches per hour in some areas. This was falling on ground that was already saturated from previous rain. Although the storms moved to the northeast, several storms redeveloped over the same area.

 

“The result was a devastating flash flood that took campers in the Albert Pike Recreation Area completely by surprise. The recreation area, which is within the Ouachita National Forest, had no on-site ranger, no land-line phone service, no cell phone service, and no siren. AM/FM radio reception was very spotty in the area due to the steep terrain. 20 people died and at least 24 people were injured; more than 60 people had to be rescued.

 

“The first calls of alarm were received around 3:13 AM CDT. An Arkansas State Police sergeant who had a cabin at the campgrounds was awakened by campers pounding on his door, shouting about the flood. The trooper immediately called for help on his patrol car radio. He and other campers were the only rescuers in the camp for the first two hours due to the Little Blocker Creek overflowing and blocking Arkansas Highway 369, the main route through Albert Pike. The road was also partially blocked by a landslide.

 

“When the flood hit, motor homes, camping trailers, fifth-wheel trailers, tents, and people and their possessions were swept out of the camp sites and into the river. Some people managed to climb to higher ground and survive, while others clung to trees for several hours until they could be rescued. Cars, trucks, and vans were overturned or washed downstream. An 18-wheel gravel truck was wrapped around trees. Boulders rolled down nearby steep hillsides. In several places, the force of the water tore the asphalt off of roads. The water was flowing at about 10 feet per second at the height of the flood.

 

“The number of people in the camping areas at the time of the flood was never determined. The registry for campers who had paid to camp was lost in the flood. And any people camped in areas outside the main campground were not even required to register.

 

“Flood waters also surged through Camp Albert Pike, a private campground adjacent to the Albert Pike Recreation Area. Although no lives were lost at Camp Albert Pike, cabins were washed away, along with additional camping trailers and recreational vehicles.

 

“At the narrowest point, the Little Missouri River, the campgrounds, and the two-lane road are squeezed into a space less than 100 yards across. Also, in this area the terrain rises about 1,000 feet within one mile of the river.

 

“In the wake of the flood, rescuers searched on horseback, in canoes and kayaks, on foot, in helicopters, in trucks, and on all-terrain vehicles for survivors. In some places debris piled up 20 to 30 feet high. Heavy equipment had to tear apart this mounded debris in order to complete the recovery of all victims’ bodies.

 

“The closest river gage, a few miles west of Langley, indicated the Little Missouri River rose from 3 feet to more than 23 feet in only 4 hours. The nearest rain gage, about 6 miles to the south-southeast in Langley, measured 7.20 inches for the 24-hour period ending at 7 AM on the 11th. About 10 miles east of the campgrounds, Hopper measured 6.78 inches.

 

“The last of the flood victims was not recovered until June 14th, and the formal searches ended on the 16th. Most of the people who lost their lives were from Louisiana or Texas. Many of the families had camped there several times before. This event had been the most disastrous weather day in Arkansas since tornadoes had taken 25 lives back on March 1st in 1997.” (National Climatic Data Center. “Massive 3AM Flash Flood at remote Pike County AR site Kills 20 Campers.” Storm Data, Vol. 52, No. 6, June 2010. Asheville, NC: NCDC, National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, NOAA, pp. 4-5.)

 

Press

 

June 11: “Flash floods triggered by more than a half-foot of rain wiped away campsites along a pair of southwestern Arkansas rivers early Friday. State police said a dozen people were killed and several others were stranded.  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….

 

“Gov. Mike Beebe, in Dumas for an economic develop announcement, said the deaths occurred about 5:30 a.m., when the water hit its peak…. The Little Missouri west of Caddo Gap stood at 3 feet Thursday but after 7.6 inches of rain fell in the area overnight the level jumped to 23.5 feet by Friday morning. At 10 a.m. it had dropped to 11.5 feet.  The damage was centered around the Camp Albert Pike area [Montgomery County], 75 miles west of Little Rock.

 

“Rainfall totaled 7.6 inches at Glenwood, a weather reporting station about 20 miles from the scene, according to data from the National Weather Service at North Little Rock. Marty Trexler, a senior meteorologist, said heavy rain fell throughout the region before moving into northern Arkansas later Friday morning.”  (Associated Press. “Police Say 12 Confirmed Dead in Arkansas Floods,” June 11, 2010.)

 

June 11: “Heavy rains caused the normally quiet Caddo and Little Missouri rivers to climb out of their banks during the night. Around dawn, floodwaters barreled into the Albert Pike Recreation Area, a 54-unit campground in the Ouachita National Forest where cars were wrapped around trees and children’s clothing was scattered across camp sites.  The raging torrent poured through the remote valley with such force that it peeled asphalt off roads and bark off trees. Cabins dotting the river banks were severely damaged. Mobile homes lay on their sides.  At least two dozen people were hospitalized. Authorities rescued dozens of others before suspending their search at nightfall Friday. The effort by crews employing helicopters, canoes, ATVs and horses would resume at daybreak Saturday, said Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler….

 

“Marc and Stacy McNeil of Marshall, Texas, survived by pulling their pickup truck 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. They were able to walk to safety once the rain stopped.  After the water receded, anguished relatives pleaded with emergency workers for help finding more than 40 loved ones reported missing. Campground visitors are required to sign a log as they take a site, but the registry was carried away by the floodwaters.”  (AP. “Flash Floods Kill at Least 16 at Ark. Campground,” June 11, 2010.)

 

June 11: “Lodi, Ark. — At least 16 people were killed and dozens more were unaccounted for after flash floods raged through campgrounds in western Arkansas early Friday morning. As many as 300 people, including families with vehicles and off-road backpackers, may have been camping along the Caddo and Little Missouri Rivers as waters surged by 20 feet between midnight and dawn, according to Red Cross and state emergency officials. Terrified families tried to outrace the churning, swiftly rising water, some fleeing up hillsides as tents vanished, recreational vehicles flipped over and rental cabins were demolished.

 

“As of Friday afternoon, 16 bodies had been recovered and dozens more people were still missing, said Chad Stover, a public affairs officer of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management. Kayla Chriss, 22, of Vivian, La., and her family had been camping in the area since Monday. “Without warning everything started washing away,” she said.

 

“Around 2:30 a.m., Ms. Chriss, her 3-year-old daughter and her 4-year-old son were pummeled into the floodwaters. She held her son between her legs, but she watched in horror as her daughter floated out of reach.  Miraculously, a man — “I only know his name is Jerry,” she said — grabbed the little girl and lifted her onto a tree. Ms. Chriss said she started to black out when her hair got caught on a jutting limb, rousing her so she could pull herself and her son onto tree branches where they waited, wet and scared, until daylight.  “I was just singing to my son, telling him everything is going to be O.K.,” she said Friday evening, shortly after being discharged from a hospital with only minor sprains; her son had a black eye. “I was just trying to find a way to keep him out of the water. If it wasn’t for him being there, I wouldn’t have made it. He kept me going.”

 

“The National Weather Service issued a flood warning around 2 a.m., after the heaviest rains had started, according to The Associated Press. By then, the disaster was already unfolding, and in any case, state officials said, the terrain and lack of cell phone service in the valleys made communications difficult.

 

“As the rivers began to recede on Friday, National Guard helicopters and hundreds of state and local officials worked frantically to search for survivors in the rugged valleys, some of them scouring the swollen rivers by canoe or kayak. Complicating rescue operations, roads in the valleys were washed out or blocked by landslides.

 

“At first, many campers, including vacationers from Texas and Louisiana, had tried to sleep through the torrential rains. But as the rivers suddenly swelled — at one point by four feet in 30 minutes — many tried to run for higher ground.  “It was like ants running from water,” said Nick Hofert, a resident who said that around 2:15 a.m. he helped several families who were scrambling up to his unflooded cabin. Children were screaming as they fled for their lives, he told CNN.

 

“Helicopters swooped over the valleys around the Albert Pike campgrounds in the Ouachita Mountains, about 75 miles west of Little Rock, on Friday afternoon. One survivor, Chad Banks of Texarkana, said his family tried to escape in their truck just before midnight but had to abandon it to the torrent.  The truck was lofted “like a leaf floating across the top of the water,” he said, and the powerful current tore off the front tires.  They survived, he told Arkansas Online, by lashing themselves to trees on a hillside until dawn.

 

“State officials said they could not recall so destructive a flash flood in recent Arkansas history.

In Glenwood, a line of cars and trucks carting logs away from the ravaged zone drove slowly past the still-swift Caddo River. Trees and a picnic table lay partly submerged in its muddy waters. Rains that began at sunset on Thursday saturated the ground before the heaviest downpours arrived between 12:30 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Friday, said Chris Buonanno, a science and operations officer with the weather service’s Little Rock office.  The rain ran off into the Little Missouri River in Montgomery and Pike Counties so quickly that the river west of Caddo Gap rose more than 20 feet overnight, from 3 feet to 23.5 feet. In the rocky terrain of the region, “it doesn’t take much to get up high like that,” said Tabitha Clarke, a weather service hydrologist at the office.”  (NYT. “Flash Floods Sweep Through Arkansas Camps,” June 11, 2010.)

 

June 11: “We have confirmed through a search of at least 12 known to be dead,” Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler told CNN. “We believe there are still individuals trapped in that area.” Heavy rains triggered flash flooding of the Caddo and Little Missouri rivers late Thursday and early Friday, Sadler said. The campground is in the Ouachita Mountains west of Little Rock.”  (Reuters. “At Least 12 Dead in Arkansas Flood: State Police,” June 11, 2010.)

 

Sources

 

Associated Press (Jill Zeman Bleed). “Flash Floods Kill at Least 16 at Ark. Campground,” San Diego Union-Tribune, 6-11-2010. Accessed 6-19-2015 at: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2010/jun/11/flash-floods-kill-at-least-16-at-ark-campground/

 

Associated Press. “Police Say 12 Confirmed Dead in Arkansas Floods,” 6-11-2010. At:  http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gTJioKmEcYR7qOaIAsX9CmwOy0VgD9G95MUG0

 

National Climatic Data Center. Storm Data, Vol. 52, No. 6, June 2010. Asheville, NC: NCDC, National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, NOAA. Accessed 6-19-2015 at: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/orders/IPS/IPS-75F60F9E-0A56-4EE1-B6DD-E05E33301D6B.pdf

 

New York Times. “Flash Floods Sweep Through Arkansas Camps,” 6-11-2010. Accessed at:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/us/12flood.html

 

Reuters. “At Least 12 Dead in Arkansas Flood: State Police,” 6-11-2010. Accessed at:  http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65A4NL20100611