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| The Flood: 46 years later |
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| By Celia DeWoody, Times Staff |
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| Raging floodwaters from Crooked Creek swept through Harrison's downtown in the early morning hours of Sunday, May 7, 1961, taking four lives and causing what the late Daily Times publisher J.E. Dunlap once called Harrison's "worst catastrophe since the birth of the city 85 years earlier, on March 1, 1876." |
| In the disaster that the Army Corps of Engineers later identified as a "100-year flood," property damage exceeded $5.4 million, and 80 percent of Harrison's business district was destroyed. |
| In the middle of Saturday night, May 6, Ruth Wills, who lived on Crooked Creek three miles upstream from Harrison, called the Harrison Fire Department and told them the creek was rising rapidly and would probably overflow the levee. |
| Fire Chief Merl Roark and firemen Cloie Wagner and Victor Jarrett called about 50 local business people, urging them to hurry to their businesses and get their stock off the floor because they were expecting Crooked Creek to flood. |
| At 1 a.m., Harrison's tornado sirens blared to warn residents of the rising creek. Officials said 5-1/2 inches of rain fell between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., according to a story Dunlap wrote for the Gazette State News Services. |
| "Many merchants were in the downtown area trying to move merchandise and were trapped when the wall of water hits at 3:30 a.m.," he wrote. The wall of water was reportedly 12 to 14 feet high. The fire department and the city hall, next to the creek, were among the first to flood. |
| The southern and eastern sides of the square, about two blocks from the creek, were hit hardest. Dunlap reported that water rose to a depth of 12 feet on the south side of the square. |
| "The first wave of the wall of water swept through the city hall, fire station, city police department and city offices as well as the First Presbyterian Church just across the street to the east," the Daily Times publisher wrote. "The main thrust of the wall of water then smacked the Commercial Hotel at the corner of Spring and Stephenson and gushed eastward, taking in its path vehicles as it washed out goods and fixtures from store buildings." |
| Floodwaters destroyed the 30-year-old brick high school agriculture building, just north of Goblin Stadium. The roof of that building, along with school buses that were washed into the creek, formed a dam against the Willow Street bridge over Crooked Creek. |
| "With the dam-like structure against the bridge, the water had no place to go but over the levee near the intersection of Spring and Central where a memorial stands today," Dunlap wrote. |
| Those who died in the flood were Troy Paul, 64; Sherman Smith, 55; J. C. McCutcheon, 77; and his wife, 74. The McCutcheons' home near Goblin Stadium disappeared after the flood, and Mrs. McCutcheon's body wasn't found until a week later, partially buried in debris two miles downstream from where her home had been. |
| A small service station building was washed a block and a half away and ended up on the courthouse lawn. |
| Thirty homes along the creek were either swept away or moved from their foundations. Most of the residents had already been evacuated. |
| There were numerous stories of citizens helping each other, and brave rescues. |
| Coffman and Holder |
| According to a story published in the Arkansas Democrat, Frank Coffman, Jr., 39, executive vice president and manager of the Harrison Federal Savings and Loan Association, and his wife had guests for dinner Saturday night. |
| "Several hours later his life was in danger," according to the Democrat. "By 6 a.m. he was a hero." |
| Coffman went down to the Savings and Loan after getting a warning call from the fire department. He was caught alone in the building when the flood hit. By the time he got to the glass front door, it was being battered by six feet of water. He dove under the water, pried the door open and managed to get on top of a nearby car. The floodwaters moved the car toward the Save-Way Hardware Co., three buildings down. Coffman managed to hold on as the car smashed through the hardware store's front glass window. He scrambled to the balcony and then managed to get to a second floor storeroom. |
| Looking across the alley, he saw five members of the Milburn family - Martha Milburn, Mr. and Mrs. Tom Milburn, Kenneth Milburn and Don Milburn - squeezed into a window, and encouraged them to hold on. From the hardware storeroom, he got a ladder and rope, which he floated over to David Holder, in a nearby apartment. Holder tied the ladder to the side of the building, which the five Milburns used to climb to safety. Then Coffman found an extension ladder and used it to cross the alley and join the Milburn family in Holder's apartment, where they all waited out the flood. |
| By 6 a.m., the water had receded. |
| From contractor to saviors |
| The Democrat also told the story of how the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Bill Atkins, who owned and operated the Commercial Hotel, were saved by two of their hotel guests. The elderly couple were trapped by the flood in their apartment on the first floor, shouting for help as they stood on a dining room table as the water quickly rose. |
| Building contractors Oran Bruce and Harold Parsons of West Memphis were in town on a job. Along with most of the hotel's 20 guests, they had taken refuge on the second floor. Hearing the Atkins' cries for help, Parsons jumped into the swirling floodwater and saw the couple stranded on the dining room table. He realized that to save them, he would have to chop a hole in the second floor above where the Atkins were standing. He and Bruce jumped to the roof of the furniture store next door and found an axe. It took them half an hour to chop a hole big enough to pull the elderly couple through to safety. |
| After the waters receded |
| "As daybreak broke through the clouds of the departing storm, residents couldn't believe what they saw or begin to comprehend what had happened," Dunlap wrote in 1986. "Three-fourths of the square had been ravaged by the flood waters, as had all business houses along Central and Stephenson avenues to the eastern edge of the city as well as all the cross streets in between." |
| A total of 331 buildings were destroyed or damaged, according to Red Cross figures reported by the Daily Times, and 109 families were affected by the flood. More than 100 automobiles were tossed around like matchsticks, with some of them crashing into buildings. Both the Chevrolet and Rambler dealers lost most of their vehicles. |
| Debris was lodged in trees downtown, some of it on branches as high as 12 feet in the air. Up to four inches of mud were left in some places. |
| Utility services were knocked out, telephone service was meager, and the city water and sewage systems were condemned by the state health department. |
| There was a critical lack of drinking water, and nearby towns sent in truck loads of well water that was distributed free from several locations around town. |
| Local doctors ordered mass inoculations against typhoid, and more than 6,000 residents received the shots. No known cases of typhoid developed. |
| The Harrison High School juniors and seniors canceled their prom and donated the money they had raised toward it, about $500, to local relief funds. Harrison schools were closed for the rest of the term. |
| © Harrison Daily Times 2007 |
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