Arkansas River maintains flood, tests dikes and residents' patience: NPR

The Arkansas River keeps climbing. The normally peaceful tributary of the Mississippi River has become a swollen torrent carrying entire trees downstream, drowning waterfront property and interrupting trade for hundreds of miles.

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said Thursday that flooding was costing $ 23 million a day to the state's economy. It is currently expected that the river will peak on Wednesday in Little Rock, Arkansas, and there is so much water flowing downstream that it will probably take more than a week before the waters of floods are starting to pull out of many areas.

Its state joins other countries, from Dakota to Louisiana, which experienced record floods for weeks or months along the Mississippi River and its major tributaries. Rainstorms swept the area, sometimes pouring inches of rain in just a few hours.

And, although floods are part of life along the rivers, the ceaseless and extreme rain of this spring makes the nation's central disaster a symbol of a broader trend: climate change is causing more extreme rains in parts of the United States. can cause more extreme floods.

According to the latest national climate assessment, "the frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall events across the United States has increased," especially in the north and center of the country.

This means that, even if this flood beats all records in the central United States, it may not be the last time that officials and infrastructure are forced to deal with a disaster of this magnitude. On the Arkansas River, dikes were built more than 60 years ago in most cases and were not necessarily designed to withstand the constant onslaught of high water caused by flooding. Several weeks.

A spokesman for the Army Corps of the Army, charged with monitoring the levies, told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette that many of them were not designed to restrain the waters of flood.

"They are there to hold water under low water conditions to make sure we have a 9-foot canal for barge traffic," said spokeswoman Laurie Driver. In other words, dikes on which hundreds of thousands of people rely to protect their homes and farms from flooding are designed to maintain water high enough in the channel of the river.

Until now, water has been shot down on a handful of dikes on Arkansas, including a major break near the town of Dardanelle on Thursday night. Hundreds of workers inspect structures, look for weaknesses and repair low areas with extra sand.

The prolonged floods have also created problems for emergency officials who rely on evacuations to ensure people's safety. In some areas, it has been difficult to convince residents whose homes have never been flooded in the past to leave their homes.

"There are many people who just did not want to leave," says Jesse Cantu, who evacuated with her four children from the Toad Suck community. On Thursday, they were one of the only families of the Red Cross shelter nearby.

"In reality, our landlord did not evacuate," Cantu said. "I hope this will not happen in a situation where they will have to rescue it." It's a pride and it's like he'd already seen the river rise and that it's always been good, so he just said, "I'm not leaving. ""

"We had fewer people than we expected," said Red Cross volunteer Jim Hewitt in an almost empty gym filled with beds. "We will be there until they no longer need us, it will take a long time for the water to come down."

Even Cantu's sister-in-law and her family refused to evacuate to the shelter. "She did not want to leave, because it never happened before, as last time it did not hit our parking lot," he says. "I am like," but this time it is. It will do even more than the recording. So you have to understand that and leave. Or you might not survive that. "

Cantu says that until now, he has failed to convince all his extended family to come to the shelter, and the water has cut off access to some neighborhoods, thus blocking those who have stayed behind.

Upstream to Fort Smith, John Hutchins and his wife, Louise, age 42, stand in their open garage behind a wall of knee-high sandbags, watching their flooded street. What had been parking places looks like a pond, with a flock of geese. There is a car parked with water up to the wells. Many of their neighbors have been evacuated.

"We just felt like we did not have to leave our house," Louise explains. "We had a fire brigade chief who said that he recommended we leave and I looked at him and said," OK, thank you. "And I did not go anywhere."

"So, as long as we have the power, we will stay," adds John.

"It's not a flood zone," says Louise. "Supposedly speaking to some of the neighbors who have lived here for years, this has never been done."