The first part of May has brought heavy thunderstorms to Eureka Springs including a storm May 4 that dropped five to seven inches of rain in a short period of time, according to the National Weather Service based in Tulsa. NWS Meteorologist Pete Snyder said the rain was expected, and a flood watch was issued.
Climate scientists have warned that the warming climate is resulting in more severe weather, including heavier rainfalls and longer droughts. But Snyder said the May 4 event was not necessarily the result of climate change.
“This is the time of year we are most likely to see heavier rainfalls,” Snyder said. “The weather in this part of the country seems to be extreme. It is a feast or famine with rainfalls. We go a period without anything, and then get torrential rainfalls. Spring is usually the heaviest rainfall period. It is normal to see bigger storms and a lot of them producing heavy rains.”
Some residents on Mill Hollow Rd. reported the creek got out of its banks and washed out their driveways. There were similar and worse problems around the county. And people reported flooding in historic homes that had never flooded before. Snyder said as homes age, there may be changes that make the structure more porous.
“That was a lot of rainfall that came down,” Snyder said. “A lot of flooding results when you have a heavy amount of rainfall that comes in that short of a period. Eureka Springs with the hills and steep roads, you have water running off all over the place. It is not optimal to have rainfall come that fast. We like to take rain anyway we can get it. There are periods when it’s drier, and we wish we had it. But a lot of water runs off when it comes that quickly rather than being absorbed.”
Eureka Springs Park Director Scott A. Miskiel said water rose about two feet over the bottom of a new footbridge at Lake Leatherwood City Park, which did cause some cables that act as railings to break.
“But the engineer designed them that way, so that they give way rather than allowing the bridge to take the brunt of that energy,” Miskiel said. “It was repaired within a day or two. The water of the lake rose high enough to flood the bait shop and the marina, but nothing was damaged. It just required some cleanup. This is not the first time that that has happened. It happens every few years.”
The weather also took out some communications equipment at LLCP, which hasn’t had phone, internet or wireless since the storm. Visitors have been unable to use credit cards for RV and cabin rentals, and the problems ended up being more difficult to repair than expected.
A stone retaining wall failed about two months ago at Crescent Spring near the library. Miskiel said it is unfortunate that it is taking so long to repair the wall, but they needed to have engineering done.
“The engineer has been retained and has done some preliminary drawings and I am hopeful that we can begin repairs to that within a few weeks,” Miskiel said. “Unfortunately, unrelated to the collapse of that wall, the entire wall along the sidewalk that leads from the gazebo to the library is failing and the engineer is designing a fix for that.”
Mayor Butch Berry said there was not a lot of damage to most of the city infrastructure. “We didn’t really have any major blowouts,” Berry said. “The damage was mostly to unimproved, unpaved areas like Mill Hollow and Oil Springs Road going back to Black Bass Dam. Those types of heavy rains always damage the unimproved surfaces. When Leatherwood Creek overflows it banks, of course it floods. It was flooded on North Main for a little bit. Within an hour or two hours, the flood had gone back down.”
The Eureka Springs Historic Museum got some minor flooding during the May 4 storm. Museum Director Jeff Danos said their issue may be that the building is so close to the bluff and an old spring cave. Springs usually experience heavy flows after big rainfalls.
“The rain came down so quickly, the water level rose, and it started to come into a rear addition on the back of the building,” Danos said. “The flooding has happened before, but this time, it was pretty extensive. It came into the rest of the building a little bit, but it didn’t cause that much damage. We got the wet-dry vac out to clean it up. We want to avoid that in the future, maybe by putting in a French drain or something. We need to keep the rear area of the building cleaned out.”
Danos was at the museum May 15 when there were strong winds and heavy rains around noon that produced about an inch-and-a-half of water in an hour.
“Once the rain hit, I was totally expecting problems again in the back,” he said. “But it stayed dry this time. The street was flooded out front. Then in the middle of the day, a transformer blew and we were without power for several hours. I believe it was storm related. The weather has been pretty wild.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reports that above average spring rainfall experienced over the past several years has led to frequent high lake levels and an increase in spillway releases at Beaver Lake. Due to both hydropower units being offline, Beaver Lake was using the spillway to make small releases from the dam prior to the rain.
“On May 4, after approximately five inches of basin average rainfall, releases were increased as the inflow volume exceeded the Lakes’ flood storage capacity,” USACE Public Affairs Chief Randall “Jay” Townsendwrote in an email May 16. “Releases were increased to a peak of 43,000 cubic feet per second on May 5 and reduced to approximately 8,750 cfs on May 7. We are currently using the spillway gates to pass inflow (3,200 cfs).”
Lake levels are currently at 1128.5 ft with 82 percent of the flood risk management pool in use. Townsend said the future levels will depend rainfall.
USACE is warning boaters to use caution because flooding has caused debris to runoff into the reservoir.