Everyone is hoping for the best as this water continues to rise, but they’re also still working to protect what they cherish so that they know they’ve done everything they can.
“My family’s been farming in the Arkansas River Valley since 1951. Currently we farm about 6,000 acres here, we grow soybeans, wheat, rice, and corn,” said farmer Robert Stobaugh.
Farmers in Pope County are bracing for the worst as they continue to fill sandbags as one last effort to block flood waters.
“This is how we make our living we operate the farms, almost all of us do now, we operate the farms just like a business,” Stobaugh said.
Senator Tom Cotton says flood waters on these lands could result in millions of dollars in losses.
“This flooding is quite possibly going to shut the door on the year for us,” he said.
The National Guard is putting these heavy bags on levees in an effort to protect as much land as possible.
“We’ll do anything we can for each other and then there are a lot of other volunteers here, folks we don’t know but they’re willing to get in there and help,” he said.
Just down the road in Dardanelle, water was just 300 yards for homes by 11 a.m.
Mayor Jimmy Witt says this is what they’ve had their eyes on for days.
“We have the monster over here on the river and this is the part we’ve been worried about that we may actually get water in town. Well, that’s happening now,” Mayor Witt said.
He’s going around town to make sure everyone is safe.
“I’m fixing to go back to the EOC and we’re going to meet with the fire department and start planning to go door to door in town and start telling people they need to start preparing to leave as soon as maybe this afternoon,” he said.
State officials have been surveying risk areas to see what resources will be needed, and to learn what they can from this historic flooding.
“There will be a lot of work moving forward and we’re already looking at what can we do to make the levees stronger in the future, and what can we do as a state to come together and make that happen," said Arkansas State Representative Mary Bentley.
The Dardenelle mayor also requested sandbag operations to start back up today. He’s asking anyone who can help to lend a hand.