Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe said there's word from the Red Cross that
there could have been as many as 300 people in the rugged Albert Pike
campground area of western Arkansas, but he said there is no
registration that would show the precise number.
Nick Hofert
awoke just after 2 a.m. to screams from families, some with children as
young as 4, hurrying up a hill toward his cabin, looking for higher
ground. He filed them into his home and went back out, trying to find
those family members who were separated from the group.
He and
others managed to find the missing relatives at an RV site, despite the
rising water.
At one point, Hofert thought the group would have
to evacuate his cabin and climb farther up the mountain, but the rains
finally subsided.
"The water was rising faster than I've ever seen," Hofert told CNN's
Rick Sanchez. People "were coming from everywhere, like ants running
from water."
Bill Sadler, a state police spokesman, said the
search is on for people still trapped in the area, a relatively remote
and rural region where cell phone service could be spotty.
Arkansas
emergency management officials said that 36 people were missing. It
wasn't immediately clear whether 30 rescues that authorities said had
been carried out involved the same individuals.
"You know, it's
never easy to approach one of these things where there are mass
casualties," Sadler said. "But what makes it even more difficult is that
you're in a very remote area. And you just can't get enough people in
there quick enough to begin searching and trying to help."
Video
from the scene showed a river coursing through the valley. The
floodwaters overturned vehicles, tore up asphalt, downed trees and
crushed cabins.
The campground is a secluded area, frequented by
generations of families who have stayed at the cabins for decades, said
Whitney Bettis, who was relieved to hear that her aunt and uncle
survived the overnight flood.
"The way you measure things in
Arkansas, I guess, is to the nearest Wal-Mart," Bettis said. The
campground "is probably a good 45 minutes to an hour to the nearest, you
know, sit-down restaurant or anything like that. It's a very beautiful
part of the state.
"I can remember sitting on the edge of the
river and playing with tadpoles and catching crawdads. ... I'm seeing
the pictures of cabins that I remember from when I was 10 years old.
This is really hard to watch."
A spokesman for St. Joseph's Mercy
Health System in Hot Springs said five flood victims were in stable
condition there.
"The primary mission of the Arkansas State
Police, working with local authorities right now, is to get the living
out of the area and locate the dead," Sadler said.
He said two
helicopters are working to locate and assist in rescuing survivors.
Local authorities are providing search volunteers, and a temporary
morgue has been set up.
Beebe said the Little Missouri River rose
from about 3 feet Thursday night to more than 20 feet early Friday in
the U.S. Forest Service campground.
"It was a very rapid flash
flood that inundated that area," Beebe said. "It's an unmanned
campground in terms of being a campground with all the amenities."
He
said rescue crews on foot, in helicopters and in vehicles were combing
the area. Law enforcement, National Guard and parks personnel were
working on the search-and-rescue efforts.
U.S. Sen. Blanche
Lincoln, D-Arkansas, said she's praying for those injured or trapped and
praised the first responders at the scene.
"As Arkansans, we
have experienced our share of severe weather. Through it all, our
citizens remain strong and resilient. Again, my heartfelt condolences
to everyone who has been affected by this tragic weather event. I will
continue to be in contact with state and local officials to monitor the
progress of the situation," she said in a statement.
Janice
McRae, whose property sits adjacent to the campground, said she and her
husband woke in the middle of the night to a knock on the door from a
cabin owner. The sight of flooding and destruction caught her by
surprise.
"It was raining, but we didn't know that there was
going to be flooding, because we hadn't had much rain lately," she said.
"The ground wasn't wet, wasn't saturated. We weren't worried about it."
McRae said she and her husband immediately found two young boys
stranded alone on the roof of a flooded cabin and were able to rescue
them.
She described people clutching to trees in pitch darkness
as cars floated past them.
The county coroner
said he is preparing for more possible deaths.
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