NW Arkansas Assesses Flood Aftermath, Recovery
By Fred Miller, UA System Division of Agriculture
Heavy rain caused heavy floods in northwest Arkansas on April 29 in large part because there was no where else for all that water to go.
Colin Massey, Washington County agent for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said the ground was already saturated from earlier rains, leaving no capacity to absorb any of the rains on Saturday.
“It’s like it was falling on concrete,” Massey said. “It couldn’t do anything but run off.”
Brian Haggard, Division of Agriculture biological and agricultural engineer and director of the Arkansas Water Resources Center, said more than 14 inches of water fell in the month of April. Water flowing from White River into Beaver Lake peaked at about 30,000 cubic feet of water per second on two days just three days apart on April 27 and 30.
“That’s just an extremely wet period,” Haggard said. “That’s about 25 percent of Fayetteville’s total annual rainfall in just one month.”
