3:15 P.M. UPDATE:
A body found Monday is likely that of a 4-year-old boy who went missing after the vehicle he was in was washed off an Arkansas bridge, an official said.
Madison County Coroner Jarrod Rogers said Monday afternoon that his office was investigating. He said the body probably belongs to a 4-year-old boy who went missing Saturday but that he has not yet examined it.
The coroner said the body has been recovered and taken to a holding facility in Huntsville, the Brashears Funeral Home at 509 N. Gaskill St.
Rogers did not know exactly where the body was found.
The 4-year-old boy and his 18-month-old sister went missing around 3 p.m. Saturday after they and their mother became stranded in a vehicle in high water. The two children were pulled downstream in Glade Creek near Hindsville before their mother could save them.
Emergency responders treated the 38-year-old mother and searched for the children Saturday and Sunday. On Monday, the operation was switched from a search to a recovery.
The 18-month-old girl has not been found as of Monday afternoon.
The Madison County sheriff’s office did not comment on the body that was recovered.
The death is the seventh so far linked to the storms that swept through Arkansas over the weekend.
— Maggie McNeary
EARLIER:
Two children who were swept away in floodwaters when their vehicle was washed off an Arkansas bridge are not expected to be found alive, authorities said Monday as the search was officially deemed a recovery process.
Around 3 p.m. Saturday, the Madison County sheriff's office received a panicked call from a 38-year-old mother who had become stranded in high water with her children, a 4-year-old boy and an 18-month-old girl, according to a news release.
The family members were inside a vehicle that was swept off a low-water bridge over Glade Creek near Hindsville, police said. The mother tried to save her children but the boy and girl were pulled downstream by the fast current, officials said.
Emergency responders treated the 38-year-old and began searching for the children into Saturday night and then from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. Saturday, the release said.
The effort began again at 7 a.m. Monday. The operation was switched at that point from a search to a recovery, authorities said.
Police have not named the mother or the two missing children.
At least six other people have died in weekend storms that caused widespread flooding across the northern half of the state and prompted Gov. Asa Hutchinson to issue an emergency declaration, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.
Among those killed were a 10-year-old girl who climbed a fence with her brother in Springdale and was swept away by the water and a kayaker who drowned on Lake Winona in Saline County, police said.
The four other victims were Doug Deckard, 51, John Vollmar, 75, Julie Schwede, 65, and a 24-year-old woman in Eureka Springs whose name was not reported.
— Emma Pettit