A small central Arkansas town called in the National Guard to help manage flooding after recent rainfall caused a levee to break, county officials said Friday.
Helicopters will be dropping large sandbags to stem the water flowing through a 140-foot by 19-foot hole in the levee surrounding Humnoke, according to Doug Erwin, the county judge of Lonoke County.
About 100 homes have about 2 feet of water in them, and those residents have evacuated, Erwin said. The town has a population of less than 300.
The Arkansas Department of Emergency Management and the Red Cross are evacuating people and offering assistance, Erwin said.
The town has a lower altitude than the communities around it, he said. The levee broke Monday night when water from Cabot and Jacksonville rushed in. He said officials hope to repair it in preparation for more rainfall that is forecast this weekend.
Last month appears to be the wettest February in Arkansas since at least 1939 and preliminarily the wettest February since state averages began being tabulated in 1895, according to the National Weather Service in North Little Rock. The Stuttgart airport, about 12 miles east of Humnoke, received more than 14 inches.
