15 feet high and rising

The moving water rescue division of the Emergency Management Department of Benton County received two calls for service over Memorial Day weekend.

"One of them was an individual who drove into some running water and she was able to get out safely," said Mike Dixon, deputy director of Emergency Management for Benton County. "The other one was people who were camping out by the Illinois River and they got stranded, but they got to safety before water rescue arrived on scene."

The recent and ample rainfall has caused flash flooding throughout Northwest Arkansas. The Illinois River went from less than six feet on Saturday to more than 15 feet 24 hours later, according to the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service from the National Weather Service. The flooding caused everything from the mild inconvenience of an emergency alert on a smart phone to the loss of property and endangerment of lives along the river.

"I was driving to town and I didn't think the water was that bad," said Mercedes Thompson, a recent high school graduate who mistakenly drove into deep, moving water. "I live like two miles away from here so I am use to water on the road and when I started driving through it I got to a point where I was like this is a bad idea and I can't get out of it now. ... By the time I realized it was a bad idea my car stopped working."

Thompson was driving toward town on Monday when she decided to try and cross what turned out to be approximately four feet of moving water that was on the road in front of the Kayak Park, according to a police officer that was on the scene. She was in the water for about 15 minutes until bystanders found some chains to use to pull her out, Thompson said.

Brittany Erin Hollaway was camping with others on Saturday night. While they slept, flood waters stranded them at their site. No one in the group was hurt, but they did lose valuables and property. Hollaway has started a Gofundme page to help alleviate some of the financial expenses caused by the water.

"When we went to bed at 11 p.m. the river was at least 20 feet below us, when we woke up at 6:45 a.m. the river had risen 15 feet and we were on an island completely surrounded by water," Hollaway's Gofundme page reads. "We attempted to pack up camp. Within 20 minutes the river had risen an additional five feet and continued to rise. We had to be rescued by raft, we were completely stranded. We lost 2 trucks and everything in them, including wallets, purse, and all the money we had with us."

Hollaway shared the link to her Gofundme page on her Facebook time line with a message about how any donation helps to replace the lost vehicles. They are grateful that no one was hurt. The link is gofundme.com/a4v7z0.

Dixon explained that two factors can help the majority of people who may need the services of the water rescue agency. The first bit of advice from Dixon is to know what areas are prone to flooding, especially for campers. The second is to avoid flooded roads and do not attempt to cross them, or -- as he said it -- "turn around and don't drown."

Both of these factors could have greatly assisted Hollaway and Thompson, and even though both were unlucky when it comes to property damage they both admitted to being lucky they were not hurt. Dixon said he was not aware of anyone having to be hospitalized from either situation.

"In both those cases the people were able to get where they were safe before we had to do any real rescue work," Dixon said. "Before the bulk of the team was even there they were able to get to a safe spot very quickly, but that is not always the case. If people would do those two things we will have a lot less people that we have to rescue."