Corps rushes to patch up levee

River threatens Toad Suck barrier still full of holes from ’19

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Ranger Aaron Winchester (right) and maintenance technician Hayden Gadberry unload sandbags Friday at the Perry County levee. The Corps is making emergency repairs on the 3-mile-long levee to prevent flooding this weekend. The levee is still undergoing repairs after it was breached 19 times during 2019 flooding.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Ranger Aaron Winchester (right) and maintenance technician Hayden Gadberry unload sandbags Friday at the Perry County levee. The Corps is making emergency repairs on the 3-mile-long levee to prevent flooding this weekend. The levee is still undergoing repairs after it was breached 19 times during 2019 flooding. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)

TOAD SUCK -- With only a few hours of notice after heavy rainstorms in Northwest Arkansas, engineers scrambled Friday to patch the one thing standing between the people of Toad Suck and the Arkansas River.

A day before the river was projected to reach the levee at Toad Suck, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began emergency repairs.

The levee at Toad Suck, still damaged from the 2019 flood, is a 2.9-mile barrier of dirt that protects 106 residents in Perry County who live along the Arkansas River. The levee protects $8.44 million in property, according to an estimate from the Corps.

The 6 to 8 inches of rain that fell in Western Arkansas Tuesday night and Wednesday morning has flown into the tributaries of the Arkansas River and is making its way downstream

By early today, the Arkansas River at Toad Suck was forecast to rise to flood stage at a crest of 275 feet, putting homes near the river at risk, according to the National Weather Service.

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From midafternoon Thursday and throughout the day Friday, crews from the Corps have been working around the clock to make emergency repairs to the 19 breaches in the levee.

"It's a 2.9-mile levee with 19 holes in it, and we've come out here and temporarily patched all of them in a day," said Jay Townsend, a spokesman for the Corps' Little Rock District.

The rain that fell earlier this week was more than what some weather forecasters predicted, surprising the engineers who saw that the river levels began to rise gradually shortly after.

"The vast majority of our flood-proof protection is in Oklahoma," said Col. Eric Noe, commander of the Little Rock District. "This rain landed on the east side of it and just wasn't captured."

The Toad Suck levee is the only one managed by the Corps that was still not fully repaired from the 2019 floods.

"Worst in the history of our county, probably a hundred-year flood," Perry County Judge Toby Davis said about the 2019 flood.

Davis was out on the levee with the Corps on Friday morning, helping to fill sandbags. While some residents still live near the levee in Perry County, Davis said many moved after the 2019 flood.

"The bad thing is a lot of people left the area and didn't come back," Davis said. "That's also a good thing so there's not near the [number] homes or mobile homes that were there."

The 2019 floods deluged much of Arkansas and Oklahoma destroying roads, bridges, homes and levees along the Arkansas River.

At Toad Suck, the damage is still visible. Trees are still without their branches, and engineers were filling in crater-size holes in the levee.

Engineers from the Corps and contractors worked through the day and night Thursday and Friday, moving mounds of dirt with bulldozers and excavators packing the patchwork of holes in the levee.

By 3 p.m. Friday, Toad Suck Park already had flooded and was closed to visitors.

"It's got to be fixed, we definitely have to fix this, this is not precautionary," Townsend said. "This is a flood fight."

The crest of the river was expected to reach 275 feet, with engineers expecting the river to crest about 1 a.m. today.

Normally, it could take up to 30 days to repair just one breach in the levee. But the Corps was able to perform emergency repairs to much of the damage in less than a day, given that emergency repairs do not require nearly as much time and effort, Townsend said.

The emergency repairs will have to be redone when the flooding subsides, and the levee at Toad Suck could be fully repaired sometime this summer, Townsend said.

The levee at Toad Suck is one of a series of levees along the Arkansas River that protects communities and farmland. Some of the levees along the Arkansas River are managed by the Corps of Engineers, while others are privately managed.

Heavy rain during the week caused flash floods in Northwest and northern Arkansas. Four counties declared emergencies from flash flooding this week: Johnson, Crawford, Franklin and Izard.

Flash floods damaged bridges and roads and swift-water rescue teams had to save people trapped in homes and vehicles.

Flooding on the Arkansas River lags behind the heavy rainfalls of this week with the river levels rising the next days and into the weekend.

On Friday, the National Weather Service extended its flood warning for the Arkansas River at Morrilton, Pine Bluff, Dardanelle and Toad Suck.

A bulldozer spreads dirt on a damaged part of the Perry County Levee on Friday afternoon.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)
A bulldozer spreads dirt on a damaged part of the Perry County Levee on Friday afternoon. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)

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