POINSETT COUNTY, Ark. — Folks in Poinsett County, Arkansas, 80 miles northwest of Memphis, don't have to evacuate after a levee breach, for now, according to Poinsett County Emergency Manager Scott Williams.
Monday, the area was placed under a verbal state of emergency after two levee breaks along the Cache River had flood waters rising two feet every 12 hours.
Williams said overnight into Tuesday morning, the water levels dropped two feet. He told ABC24 there was no need for any evacuations at this point. The water levels will continue to be checked.
The National Weather Service had placed the county under a Flash Flood Warning due to the breech, which could affect the roughly eight homes and 15 to 20 thousand acres of farmland in the immediate area.
Williams said Monday if the water had continued to rise, they would have considered evacuations in the small community of Pitts.
“Right now, we’re not able to stop the flooding from (the source),” said Lt. Jay-Ryan Woods with the Poinsett County Sheriff’s Department. “Which is why we have focused our efforts and our resources at this location.”
Poinsett County Emergency Management and the sheriff’s department set up a staging area near Pitts Baptist Church. They said they sandbagged about a quarter mile of the surrounding area in an effort to keep the flood waters at bay.
Monday evening, Williams said the water was starting to flow over the Pitts Bridge.
“It’s just going to keep eating out further that way and you’ll have a 20-yard hole before you know it,” said Billy Walker, one of the 30 to 40 volunteers assisting with the cleanup.
The two breaks happened Sunday night, one at a levee on private property and the other more impactful one in the Cache River levee. Walker said that between Sunday night and Monday afternoon, the hole in the levee has grown 100 times larger, estimating it to be roughly 15 feet wide and 6 feet deep.
“We’re just doing damage control right now,” he said. “This is worse than previous years, so it’s hard to manage.”
Walker said they have had levee breaks like this before in 2017 and 2018. He pointed to drainage issues in the Grubbs area as a major reason why and said people suspected this would happen again.
“This water has got to go somewhere,” Walker said. “And if it has nowhere to go, it affects everywhere in the community.”
He expected any possible flooding to impact both homes and farmland.
“This is going to trickle all the way down to the other communities, other farmlands,” Walker said. “Other farmers are already coming by and seeing all the damage that’s coming their way.”