Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Storm drenches Gurdon; several businesses flooded

Heavy rains fell during the night on Wednesday, June 11, flooding most of Gurdon.

By 2:30 a.m. businesses were flooded, cars had been swept off the road or drowned out, and several residents were being evacuated by Gurdon Police Officers and the Gurdon Volunteer Fire Department.

The parking lot at Sexton Food's and Red-E-Mart was flooded to at least four-feet deep in it's deepest part. Some water made it's way into the doors of Sexton's, however the business had no extensive damage.

Water also made it's way into the doors of Rickett's Auto Parts.

Water was crossing the highway in front of the business at a rapid speed. GPD was encouraging drivers to go back home.

Additionally, Gurdon's underpass and the trailer houses nearby were flooded.

Red-E-Mart on Highway 67 and Absolute Fitness were flooded with about a foot of water in each of them. Water rose up on the gas pumps and nearly covered the air compressor. Several storage lockers located behind the store suffered from water damage as well.

The downpour also washed out a section of Highway 8 west of Amity near the Pike County line. A Highway Department spokesman told a reporter from the Daily Siftings Herald, a 30-foot section of a culvert was washed out.

About five-inches of rain fell in Arkadelphia and caused "thousands of dollars" of damage to city streets.

An Arkansas State Police spokesman said an Amity woman and her young son were killed in a weather related traffic accident on Arkansas 84 west of Amity. According to the ASP, Courtney Crow and her son, Joey Ducot, were killed in the accident. No other information was available from the ASP at press time about the fatal accident.

The traffic mishap occurred between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. The spokesman said the accident was "apparently" the result of the heavy rainfall.

The rain, which began about midnight and continued until daylight, caused "quite a bit of damage" to city streets, Jimmy Bolt, Arkadelphia's city public works director, said. He said 26th Street and 8th Street were hit hard by the rainfall.

Gildner Ford got under water again. The dealership was also flooded during the heavy rains on May 7.

Water damage was also reported at the Southwest Arkansas Food Bank and the Community Family Enrichment Center which both fell victim to last month's rain storm. The morning's rains flooded sections of Feaster Trail.

Bolt said the damage from the rainfall to city streets was probably less than on May 7, because of the duration of the rainfall.

He said the storm added insult to injury to the city's efforts to repair the damage from the May 7 flash flood.

He said some of those repairs had yet to be made and that this morning's storm added to the previous damage.

Jim Burns, director of the Clark County Office of Emergency Management, said the rain damaged roads and culverts in many areas of the county, particularly in the northwest around Amity.

As of Thursday afternoon, Burns was still driving around the county trying to get an idea of all the damage. He said it would be sometime next week before they actually had a figure they would release for the cost of the damage.