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HEAVY SHOWERS FLOOD STREETS, BUILDINGS

By Ray King/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 12:37 PM CDT

With the ground already saturated, heavy rain Tuesday had no place to go except on the streets and highways, and in some cases into buildings.

Employees from Harris Electric check the status of the water pumps while Huckleberry Road in White Hall is flooded Tuesday morning. Pine Bluff Commercial/Ralph Fitzgerald

“This is the fourth time this has happened to us this year,” John Beene, owner of Razorback Marine at 2405 N. University Drive, said about water in his building. “I’ve been around Pine Bluff for more than 40 years and I can’t remember a year when we had this kind of rainfall.”

The National Weather Service at North Little Rock reported on its Web site that Pine Bluff has recorded 57.58 inches of rain since Jan. 1, that’s more than 18 inches above the total for last year at this time.

“Traditionally, when we get this much water in a short period of time, it has no place to go,” Wally Hunt, Jefferson County Office of Emergency Management said. “We’ve had some reports of flooding on Shannon Road, the Ashley Road area, and Oakwood Road in south Pine Bluff, around Broadmoor and Boston Drive, and some of the places we traditionally get flooding, like West 27th and 28th Avenues,” Hunt said.

“There are some spots that we always know are going to flood when we get this kind of rain,” he said. “What I’ve seen driving around the county is that the creeks are full and water up to the roads and over the roads in some spots, especially out on Old Warren Road and Middle Warren Road, but the roads are certainly passable.”

For Beene, the fourth time has proven to be the charm as he’s planning to move the business back to Dollarway Road.

“We’re going to regroup and start over,” he said. “We’ve had customers come in and look at us like ‘What are you going to do’ when they see the all the water on the floor. It got so bad we had baby crawfish swimming on the floor today.”

Hunt said that there had been no reports of structural damage or injuries as the result of the rains, which, according to the weather service, are expected to continue through Thursday night before a cold front pushes the rains out of the state.

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