16 dead as flash flood rips through Arkansas campground

CADDO GAP, Ark. — Floodwaters that rose as swiftly as 8 feet an hour tore through a campground packed with vacationing families early Friday, carrying away tents and overturning RVs as campers slept. At least 16 people were killed, and dozens more missing and feared dead.

Heavy rains caused the normally quiet Caddo and Little Missouri rivers to climb out of their banks during the night. Around dawn, floodwaters barreled into the Albert Pike Recreation Area, a 54-unit campground in the Ouachita National Forest that was packed with vacationing families.

The raging torrent poured through the remote valley with such force that it peeled asphalt off roads and bark off trees. Cabins dotting the river banks were severely damaged. Mobile homes lay on their sides.

Two dozen people were hospitalized. Authorities rescued 60 others.

Marc and Stacy McNeil of Marshall, Texas, survived by pulling their pickup truck between two trees and standing in the bed in waist-deep water.

“It was just like a boat tied to a tree,” Marc McNeil said, describing how the truck bobbed up and down.

They were on their first night of camping with a group of seven, staying in tents. The rain kept falling, and the water kept rising throughout the night, at one point topping the tool box in the back of the truck.

“We huddled together, and prayed like we’d never prayed before,” Stacy McNeil said. They were able to walk to safety once the rain stopped.

After the water receded, anguished relatives pleaded with emergency workers for help finding more than 40 missing loved ones.

Authorities agreed that the death toll could easily rise. Forecasters warned of the approaching danger during the night, but campers could easily have missed those advisories because the area is isolated.

“There’s not a lot of way to get warning to a place where there’s virtually no communication,” Beebe said. “Right now we’re just trying to find anybody that is still capable of being rescued.”