LITTLE ROCK, Ark.—Relentless flooding in the central U. S. on May 31 inundated communities and damaged or spilled over levees on three major rivers…
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.—Relentless flooding in the central U. S. on May 31 inundated communities and damaged or spilled over levees on three major rivers in two states, and authorities discovered the body of a drowning victim at a Missouri lake.
The fast-flowing Arkansas River smashed a 40-foot hole in a levee in rural western Arkansas, causing water to spill into a nearby community. In northeast Missouri, a levee was overtopped on the Mississippi River, and another levee was topped on the Missouri River in the central part of the state.
The flooding has been building for days because of heavy rainfall upstream. In Arkansas, officials were warning of more potential problems on an already strained levee system.
“These levees were not built to sustain this high a flow for this long, and we are seeing problems and there more than likely will be more,” said Laurie Driver, spokeswoman for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers Little Rock District.
In eastern Missouri, the state Highway Patrol’s Water Division reported that the body of 57-year-old Lane Panasuk, of Butte, Montana, was recovered Thursday evening from Harry S. Truman Lake in Henry County, but the patrol said it did not know why he was in the water. The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers had warned visitors about high water levels that had closed most of the campgrounds around the lake and a road over its dam.
In Arkansas, the levee breached at Dardanelle, about 60 miles northwest of Little Rock. Yell County officials had anticipated the breach and urged residents in the nearby Holla Bend area to evacuate Thursday.
