Arkansas River bursts through levee north of Little Rock, triggering evacuations

TULSA, Oklahoma – The swollen Arkansas River ripped through a 40-foot section of a levee about 75 miles northwest of Little Rock, Arkansas, early Friday morning, prompting flash-flood warnings and evacuations in rural areas around Dardanelle and Holla Bend.

The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning in the area, warning that some 5,700 people, four schools and a hospital were potentially exposed to the flooding. The NWS urged people to move to higher ground.

“Water is going to do what it wants to do,” Yell County Judge Mark Thone told reporters at a news conference. “We’re just trying to head this off.”

Jimmy Witt, mayor of Dardanelle, called on the 4,500 residents of his town to begin immediate sandbagging operations. He said he expected water to encroach the town "from the bayou side." 

"I ask you to please not panic, we have time to prepare for this," Witt said on his Facebook page.

The weather service noted a slight dip in the water level for the levee at Dardanelle, likely due to the breach.

"An historic flood event is expected along the Arkansas River in the coming days," warned the weather service in Little Rock. "Some long-time record crests could be surpassed by five feet above the record set in 1945."

This is the same river that's flooded hundreds of homes in the Tulsa area, and the high water is rolling downstream as the Arkansas River makes its way to its confluence with the Mississippi River and then down into the Gulf of Mexico. Authorities say flooding danger will rise through at least the weekend along the river.

Arkansas authorities urged residents to evacuate the area, which is largely rural with dirt roads crisscrossing farm fields.

Drone footage published by the Yell County Sheriff's Department showed the muddy water streaming through the dirt levee, surrounding several buildings with several feet of water. Yell County officials had anticipated the breakthrough and urged residents in about 160 homes in the nearby Holla Bend area to evacuate Thursday.

Emergency management officials say crews were going door-to-door to recommend evacuation for about 160 homes.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson, along with several federal lawmakers, surveyed the inundated area by air on Thursday and said more than 500 homes have been affected by flooding.

"As I flew over today, the most significant impression I had is that it's hard to imagine the magnitude of the flooding," Hutchinson told reporters in Fort Smith. "It is hard to comprehend. We have never seen this before, and we have never had to deal with this before."

At least one person, a 64-year-old man, has died in the flooding. He died on Tuesday after apparently ignoring a barricade at roadway near Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. His body was found in a submerged vehicle.

The Arkansas River began rising sharply after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released water from a swollen lake near Tulsa that had risen sharply due to heavy rains in Oklahoma and Kansas.

In Tulsa, authorities say the lowering water levels may reveal damage to the levees, which have been soaked for days. On Friday, they announced a 20-foot-deep sinkhole had opened beneath a street. 

Weather service officials have said flooding will continue along the river as water crests on its way downstream over the next week toward the Mississippi River.

Earlier this year, about two dozen levee systems were breached or overtopped during Missouri River flooding that devastated parts of Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri.

Contributing: Associated Press