The search for nearly two dozen people who disappeared after flash floods swept through a popular campground went from desperate to grim on Saturday, after teams that scoured kilometers of river and rugged wilderness found just two bodies.
The last time someone was found alive was on Friday morning, hours after a pre-dawn wall of water surprised sleeping campers at the Albert Pike Recreation Area, leaving them frantically trying to scramble up the steep terrain in the dark.
As the swollen rivers subsided and the hours ticked by on Saturday, anguished relatives waiting for word of loved ones grew more and more frustrated, lashing out at reporters, knowing that at some point the search mission would become one of recovery.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“They’re just devastated. The time for shock has probably gone and now it’s just anxiety building. They’re beginning to fear the worst,” said Graig Cowart, the pastor of the Pilgrim Rest Landmark Missionary Baptist Church.
At least six of the 18 people confirmed killed were young children, according to a list released by Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe’s office publicly identifying 15 of them. Among them were five people, including three children, from Gloster, Louisiana, as well as three others from that state and six from Texas. State police said on Saturday evening that there were 22 people missing.
About 200 searchers combed some 32km of wilderness along the receding rivers on Saturday. Crews on kayaks and canoes scanned the thick brush and debris in the swollen Caddo and Little Missouri rivers for bodies, but experts say many of those killed could be trapped under fallen trees and rocks and that the river water likely won’t be clear enough to see through for several days.
Others rode out on horseback and all-terrain vehicles to scan the heavily wooded area and rocky crags along the rivers, where debris hung as high as 8m up in tree branches. Cellphone service and visibility from the air in the heavily wooded area are very poor, hampering search efforts. Portable cell towers were dispatched to the area in the hope that stranded survivors would be able to call for help.
Police haven’t said when they would call off the search efforts and crews were expected to break once night fell and to resume at daybreak yesterday.
Authorities initially feared there were many more people unaccounted for. A register that would have showed who was staying at the campground was washed away in the flood, and a call center fielded inquiries about 73 people who hadn’t been accounted for as of Friday night.
Floodwaters rose as swiftly as 2.4m per hour, poring through the remote valley with such force that it peeled asphalt from roads and bark off trees. Cabins dotting the riverbanks were severely damaged and mobile homes lay on their sides.
Forecasters had warned of the approaching danger in the area during the night, but campers could easily have missed those advisories because the area is isolated.
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