Little Sugar Creek rose rapidly Saturday morning, spilling over the golf course and surrounding areas.
As debris piled up on the upstream side of the Peck Road bridge, water spilled around and across the bridge. But, unlike the flood in 2009, the bridge was not structurally damaged.
“The bridge did what it was supposed to do,” Nathan See, Street Department superintendent, said. “They designed it where it would spill over and not undermine the bridge like it did in 2009.”
See said that in 2009, floods took out the bridge and the city Street Department had to rebuild it; it cost a little over $150,000.
“That’s the only way out for residents up there,” See said. In 2009, the flood waters undermined the road, the underside of the bridge and the northwest corner where water lines were uncovered.
“This time, it undermined at the edge of the spillways, but nothing like it had done in the past. It did not actually come up on the guardrails, acted as a spillway as it should have.”
See said engineers designed slopes on the east and west sides of the bridge and put rebar into the slopes and the head wall. Concrete was used instead of asphalt.
He said the bridge is now on state inspection list.
“I will contact them to inspect just to be sure,” See said.
Mayor Jackie Crabtree said he checked the bridge at 6:30 a.m. and it was fine.
Police officer Chris Richards, in patrolling the city, checked the bridge at 7:45 a.m. and said the water was high, but not close to overtopping the bridge. But, by 8:30, he said it was flooded.
“It’s fixing to be underwater,” See said Richards told him. See asked Richards to notify residents on Peck Road, Willis Lane and Reed Loop; there were some people there visiting from out of state who needed to get out.
“They were the last people through for four hours.”
See called Terry Trotter of Action Tree Service, who responded quickly.
See said, “He takes good care of us.”
Trotter removed logs and a refrigerator from the creek and piled them up on the south side of the creek.
See said Street Department employees will haul it o◊.
“I’m very grateful to the mayor, to Street Department employees Tommy Thompson and Tom Sheets, Water Department employees Charlie Vanaman and Mike Nida, and Police O◊cer Chris Richards. They all gave generously of their time. They were all out with us during the rains.
“The Water Department lent us their pump to pump water o◊Arkansas Highway 265 to avoid fl ooding homes on the corner of Chapman and Hayden roads.”
“And, I want to thank the citizens of Pea Ridge for being concerned, several people came down while we were working on the bridgeand o◊ered assistance,” See said.
News, Pages 1 on 08/07/2013