12 DIE IN FLASHFLOODING IN W. ARKANSAS

This is very similar to what happened along the Guadalupe river between Gruene and New Braunfels on Wednesday morning from the same system. Several RV parks and campgrounds flooded out in a matter of an hour or so after 4 inches of rain fell in 50 minutes and a total of approx. 12 inches in 18 hours. Here's the NWS recap with photos from the Texas event:

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/images/ewx/wxevent/june92010flood.pdf
 
The terrain is hilly. Radar indicates ~8 inches of rain fell. Also look at the METARs from the nearest reporting airport, KMWT. About 7 inches fell there over the past day, but the bulk of that fell in the middle of the night over a period of a couple hours. This is apparently a rather popular campground. A warm summer weekend night.
 
IN A LOCALIZED SWATH FROM PIKE TO MONTGOMERY TO
GARLAND COUNTIES...6 TO 7 INCHES OF PRECIPITATION IS ESTIMATED TO
HAVE FALLEN.

THIS VERY HEAVY RAIN RESULTED IN SIGNIFICANT FLASH FLOODING OF
RIVERS AND VALLEYS WITH THE MOST NOTABLE FLOODING ALONG THE LITTLE
MISSOURI RIVER IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY WHERE THE STAGE AT THE
LANGLEY GAGE ROSE FROM 3.57 FEET AT 130 AM TO 23.39 FEET AT 530
AM. THIS GAGE IS LOCATED 4.5 MILES DOWNSTREAM OF THE ALBERT PIKE
RECREATION AREA...WHERE A NUMBER OF FATALITIES AND MISSING PEOPLE
HAVE BEEN REPORTED.
 
Toll is up to 20 now. I dont know how many are missing though. Saw one thing on CNN where they said upwards of 300 people were in the area at the time. Sort of makes me think of the Big Thompson Canyon Flood in 76
 
Can you imagine the chaos? Campers, in the dark asleep, when suddenly at 4:30am rapidly rising water in your tent wakes you up? I tent camp with my wife and 9 year old daughter, and I just shudder to imagine.

The weather service is always trying to get us all to remember that lightening and flash floods kill SO many more people than tornadoes and hurricaines. Lightening scares me, but I'll admit that the danger of flooding is just not on my radar (no pun intended). I am the most over prepaired person on Earth! I always carry WAY more gear with me than I EVER need, "just in case". I really need to change my mind set, and remember how these people were caught. Very sad indeed.
 
Mike Smith said:
Arkansasonline says that 16 are dead and doesn't mention a specific number of missing. http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2010/jun/11/beebe-disaster-among-worst-seen-governor/?breaking

The Phoenix area has sirens along some normally dry watercourses. Those are sounded during flash flood conditions. This is an option that perhaps should be adopted in other areas.
Click to expand...

I heard on the radio just a minute ago that around 40 are missing. Hopefully there is just some bad communication going on. Would hate to hear that up to 60 people have lost their lives.

This isn't exactly a "dry" watercourse, it's usually a peaceful mountain stream. I've camped there a few times and been just to fish for the Small Mouth bass. You can cross it most places with out getting over your knees, but it does have some deep holes where folks swim. On one side the bank is pretty steep and then on the other side there is some flat land in the valley where most of the camp sites are located. Then of course just on the other side of the campgrounds is the road and another sharp rise in terrain, if I'm remembering right. Most all of the waterways in this area are between mountain ridges.

I've been thinking... what if I were camped there this weekend, with rain beating on the tent for several hours... would I have been aware of my surroundings enough to have realized the danger? I'd like to think so, but I don't know. I'm one of these always be prepared types also... but some folks I'm sure never even had a clue they were in danger. It's a bit sad with all the modern technology and comforts that we (including myself) lose our natural instincts about stuff like that. For instance, native American Indians in that situation would have known to move to higher ground. I realize however this was an extremely rare event.... and it happened at night. A tragic event.
 
HEADING TO ALBERT PIKE IN THE AM

Our family has a cabin there. We are going up early in the morning as the State Police have opened it up again. Cabin next door is GONE. Devastation is horrible. the word from survivors is that the screams of the children were horrendous & a nightmare. everything went dark and river rose 20 feet in less than 2 hours. I know some of the missing and deceased. It breaks my heart...

our cabin survived bc it was reinforced with concrete pillars and we poured concrete all way down to river so no erosion. We were lucky. Pray for all.

This area is promulgated by Texarkana residents as most cabins are owned by people from Texarkana.
 
Was it raining at the campgrounds or was this a storm that stayed several miles away without the campers knowing about the torrential rain?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
B Ozanne said:
Was it raining at the campgrounds or was this a storm that stayed several miles away without the campers knowing about the torrential rain?
Click to expand...

It was raining over the whole area, with pockets of very heavy rain, thunderstorms. I'd guess it was an MCS but it was pretty small. Anyone want to explain? The rain area was the size of about a fourth of the state of AR. Heavy thunderstorms with couplets even at times in the eastern edge, one was tornado warned in NE TX. Massive shelf out in front of the thing just before dark as it came into Texarkana. What was odd to me was that there was even persistent very heavy thunderstorms on the far Western edge of the system. The whole thing rotating. Lot's of cgs.

I'd have to assume that some of the thunderstorms, over 2 inches per hour, set up over some of the tributaries just right and a massive amount of water hit the river at about the same time from different areas, different tributaries. Then of course it all had to go down the river at once. Which I guess that is basically the definition of a flash flood. Any other rain situation even more than seven inches, the rise would have been more gradual.

Seems everyone knows someone that has been effected by this here, really sad situation...
 
Little Rock NWS has created a page for this event:

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lzk/?n=rain0610.htm

Something that's not mentioned on that page is that this low was warm cored (at least aloft). This was easy to see on the SPC mesoanalysis charts. It had opened up and weakened some by the time it got to the Cincinnati area, but I recorded 4.25" of rain in about 4 1/2 hours Saturday morning from this system. The core would tend to weaken or die completely during the day, then blossom later at night. Convection would develop along the periphery of the system during the day (some severe).
 
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