Risk driving in water surprises motorists

Officials ‘mad’ when barriers are evaded

By Robert J. Smith

Posted: May 1, 2011 at 5:24 a.m.

Jason Ivester
Bentonville police officer John Loncarevic tapes off a bridge where a Mazda truck was pulled from a creek near Opal Road in Bentonville on Tuesday. Two bodies were found near the vehicle after it was believed to have been washed off the road by flood waters.

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Rebekah Valentine picked up her children from school Monday and headed for the house.

It was pouring rain.

In her little Kia Spectra, the rural Prairie Grove woman and the four children narrowly made it through water running across Viney Grove Road north of town.

She told herself after driving out of the water: “I shouldn’t have done that.”

About a mile later, on Doc Hall Road, Valentine droveinto surging water again. It was dark and raining so hard that she never saw the water before she hit it.

The car stalled. Her oldest children, ages 12 and 10, were “freaking out” as muddy water pushed hard against the passenger side doors and filled up the floorboard.

“I was thinking, ‘Should I get out or not?’” said Valentine, 32. “Can I make it? Do I take some of the kids and leave some behind, and come back to get them? I didn’t know.”

Northwest Arkansas already was saturated from heavy rainfall over the weekend before persistent rainfall Monday swelled rivers and caused flash flooding, catching drivers such Valentine off guard. Valentine called 911, and a Farmington swift -water rescue team helped her and the children to safety.

Valentine’s Kia was among 50 vehicles that became stuck in floodwater just in Washington County, estimates Shane Wood, rescue manager of the urban search and rescue team for the Washington CountyDepartment of Emergency Management.

Five people were killed Monday in three flood-related vehicle incidents in Northwest Arkansas. The victims were two men on a Bentonville road who drove around a barricade before being swept away by Osage Creek, an elderly Huntsville couple whose car hit War Eagle Creek as it raged across Arkansas 23 in southern Madison County and a West Fork woman who got out of her vehicle after driving into the Illinois River’s surge across Arkansas 265 near Hogeye in Washington County.

“Six inches of water can knock a person off their feet, and 18 inches will float a car, but it’s less water than that that causes you to lose control of it,” said Mary Mullusky, chief of the National Weather Service’s Hydrologic Services Branch.

“That’s all going to depend on the speed of the water. You feel safe in that car. It seems like a huge force, but the power of water is stronger.”

Elm Springs Police Chief Jason Hiatt said bad decisions about driving into water - then requiring rescue - strain law enforcement resources. So many people drove around barricades meant to stop drivers on Arkansas 112 at Brush Creek that Hiatt stationed his only onduty police officer there.

“It’s a serious thing people don’t focus on,” Hiatt said. “If they get swept off, it’s rescue crews and firefighters trying to save them and putting their own lives at risk. We almost wish there was more punishment.”

Rural fire chiefs discussed the problem of drivers who intentionally drive around barricades at a meeting Tuesday night, and the topic came up again when Northwest Arkansas sheriffs and police chiefs met Friday, said WashingtonCounty Sheriff Tim Helder.

“What everyone is wanting is a solid law that deals with emergency situations where people intentionally bypass barricades,” Helder said. “We’re mad. We want to punch them in the nose, but I’d hate to get in a position where I’m fighting with people who are just trying to get home.”

The National Weather Service in 2004 started a “Turn Around Don’t Drown” campaign meant to warn people about the danger of driving through high water. But there’s been little research into why drivers take that chance, Mullusky said.

Ashley Coles, a University of Arizona graduate student, surveyed 170 Tucson residents about driving into water across flooded roads. Coles said 61 percent of the respondents acknowledged knowingly driving into flood water.

Arizona has what’s widely called the “stupid motorist law” that allows authorities to charge up to $2,000 as restitution from drivers who go around a road barricade and must be rescued.

Coles said her research in Tucson showed most drivers size up their situation when they pull up to a flooded road, sometimes stopping to call friends to ask if a certain road is safe when water is running on it. The drivers calculate that risk but also take into account such things as the importance of getting home quickly or getting to work on time, Coles said.

“Flood risk managers want to improve their [education] message, but they can’t,” Coles said. “People already get it. They know it’s dangerous.”

Those who drove into high water Monday included a 22-year-old man who went around a barricade at a lowwater bridge on Pevehouse Road north of Van Buren. The flooded Lou Emma Creek knocked the man’s sport utility vehicle off the road. A VanBuren police officer was soon on the scene and saw the vehicle bob downstream, and eventually out of sight, said Crawford County emergency management coordinator Dennis Gilstrap.

The man and his girlfriend, a passenger, stayed in the vehicle for a time before deciding to climb out through its sunroof. They reached the shore before a water rescue team arrived, Gilstrap said.

In Crawford County, it was the only vehicle-related emergency response caused by last week’s flooding, Gilstrap said.

“They were fortunate,” he said. “If they had opened the door and tried to get out, they would have been swept away.”

Six vehicle rescues involving eight people occurred in Carroll County, said Jason Morris, the county’s emergency management coordinator.

Among those stuck in high water Monday in Washington County was Anna Huynh, who lives on Short Street in Greenland. She was alone in her Chrysler minivan when the levee on a pond broke and water pushed across the road near a low-water bridge.

“I was surrounded within a minute,” said Huynh, 30. “I called 911 because I knew if they didn’t get there soon, I was going to be in trouble.”

Huynh stayed in her vehicle until help arrived, then she climbed out the back of her minivan and grabbed the arm of a search-and-rescue team member.

Springdale resident James Pickering was driving on Snavely Road west of Elm Springs when water washed his Chevrolet Suburban into a ditch. It tilted toward the passenger side and started to fill up.

“I felt all right going up through there,” said Pickering, 73. “The water was on the road, and it wasn’t that bad until all at once, it was deep and pushed me into the ditch.

“It was just a freak accident. It wasn’t my fault, but I was pretty well scared.”

A group of Springdale firefighters rescued Pickering on Monday afternoon. Fire Capt. Dean Bitner was one of them.

“The only more terrible death I can imagine than drowning would be burning,” Bitner said. “Do we need to do more community education about this? I don’t know. How can we keep it from happening again?

“People just don’t think. You can’t say anything to them when you’re there. You can say you should have known better, but you don’t accomplish anything by scolding.”

Wood isn’t hesitant to scold drivers - if there’s time.

“If I have a chance, I chew on their tail,” Wood said. “But these calls on Monday, we didn’t have a chance to talk to them. It was, ‘We’ve got to go, we got another call.’”

The flash flooding across Northwest Arkansas counties doesn’t happen often. Fiveday rainfall totals as of Tuesday ranged from 8.56 inches in the community of Winfrey in Crawford County to 13.26 inches in Eureka Springs in Carroll County, according to the National Weather Service. The Illinois and White rivers swelled to levels not seen in decades, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Valentine, the woman who escaped the Kia with her children, said she’s in a better position to size up flooding.

“I know how much water is OK and how much is not,” the Fayetteville hairstylist said. “If I can’t see the ditches, I’m not driving across. That was too scary.

“It was a lesson that things can happen to you.”

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 15 on 05/01/2011

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